MY SCRAP-BOOK 



OF 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



EDITED BY 

ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER 

/ i 

AUTHOR OF "FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "RUSSIA 

AND TURKEY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," "ENGLAND 

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," " EUROPE IN AFRICA 

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," " ITALY IN THE 

NINETEENTH CENTURY," "SPAIN IN THE 

NINETEENTH CENTURY," ETC. 




CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 

t8q8 



Copyright 

By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

A. D. i8q8 



17195 




/i^, 



x'y \jv 









-.;d COPV 



(1 i 7- 

■ T-3 




MARIE ANTOINETTE. 



NOTE. 

OF this book I am simply the compiler, — unless, indeed, 
I may call myself the translator of such parts as 
have been derived from French sources. I collected the 
material two years since, when giving parlor lectures on the 
French Revolution ; and much that then passed into my 
scrap-drawer seemed to me too interesting to be confined 
to small circles of ladies who gathered round me with their 
crochet-work or embroidery. I have, therefore, collected 
my " Scraps " into a book for general reading. 

Thomas Waters Griffith, whose reminiscences begin this 
volume, was the uncle of my husband, Randolph B. Latimer. 
He wrote several books concerning the early history of 
Baltimore and Maryland, and left behind him a manuscript 
volume of his personal reminiscences. With that portion 
of it which contains a narrative of his residence in France 
during the Reign of Terror and the rule of the Directory 
I have begun this volume. After his return from France, 
he was sent by the government at Washington to report on 
the condition of the Island of Hayti. He was a strong 
Federalist, and has left a minute account of riots in 
Baltimore in 1812, when the offices of a Federalist news- 
paper were attacked by a so-called " patriotic " mob. 
Louis XVHL, in 1816, sent him the Cross of St. Louis, 
in recognition of the services he had rendered to emigres 
during the Reign of Terror. He was also made a Free- 
mason during his residence in France. I have a parch- 
ment containing a certificate of his initiation into the order, 
in the second year of the Republic. ■ 



IV NOTE. 

I was a subscriber to the Literary Supplement of the 
Paris "Figaro" for twenty years. During the years 1893, 
1894, and 1895, the centennial anniversary of terrible 
scenes in the Reign of Terror, this paper published valuable 
articles on the subject as the one hundredth anniversary of 
each event arose. These monographs, I think, cannot but 
be found interesting by many of my readers. 

I have tried to keep in mind in all my writings the motto, 
Suum cuique, and to claim no more credit than what is 
fairly my due. 

In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge my obliga- 
tions in this book — and the obligations of a lifetime — to 
" Littell's Living Age." Living, as I have done, in the 
country, I could not without its assistance have kept in 
touch with foreign magazine literature. In 1841, Mr. 
Robert Walsh, then United States Consul in Paris, and at 
that time one of America's leading literary men, showed me 
an early number of the "Living Age," saying, "This pub- 
lication will prove of immense value to all classes of readers 
in our country." I have a complete copy of the " Living 
Age" from 1848 to the present day, — nearly two hundred 
volumes, each containing more than six hundred pages. 
To me it has been of inestimable value in my work, and to 
the children in my family an education. 

The " Scraps " in this volume are not, I think, accessible 
to the public without research, with the exception of two 
or three taken from Carlyle's " French Revolution." I 
inserted them as links between events which I thought 
needed some connection ; and who can paint in a few brief 
words a picture like Carlyle ? His rugged style lends point 
and picturesqueness to his narratives, and, as Victor Hugo 
says, " fait penserJ^ Nevertheless, in these extracts I have 
taken the great liberty of slightly modifying the language. 
If Carlyle were living, I am afraid he would be angry with 
me. I saw him angry once (not with me), and should 



NOTE. V 

have been afraid to provoke him again to anger. But my 
excuse for my presumption is that the introduction of a 
few pages of pure Carlylese into the midst of a work written 
in a wholly different style, though by a variety of authors, 
would have produced in parts of my book a sort of dislo- 
cation. Perhaps I had no right to substitute "frenzied" 
for '' fremescent," and so on; for, indeed, the word "fren- 
zied " has not half the force of "fremescent." But the one 
is our every-day English ; the other, not. 

E. W. L. 

BoNNYWOOD, Howard Co., Maryland, 
August, 1898. 



CONTENTS. 



aSook I. 

REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN RESIDENT 
IN PARIS FROM 1791 TO 1799. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Thomas Waters Griffith: he goes to France . . 9 

II. August and September in Paris in 1792 .... 27 

III. His Imprisonment in the Reign of Terror ... 43 

IV. Life in Paris under the Directory 58 

iSoofe 11. 

FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 

I. Imprisonments and Escapes of Latude 70 

II. A^JPeasant's View of the Revolution 107 

III. Paris in 1787 116 

IV. Court Life at Versailles on the Eve of the Rev- 

olution 130 

iSoofe III. 

THE COLLAPSE OF FRENCH ROYALTY. 

I. The Flight to Varennes 144 

II. Count Axel Fersen 164 

III. August the Tenth and the September Massacres 172 

IV. The Princesse de Lamballe 184 

V. The King 198 

VI. Marie Antoinette and Robespierre 223 

VII. Closing Scenes in the Life of Marie Antoinette 232 



vm CONTENTS. 

Booit IV. 

THE REIGN OF TERROR. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Marat 244 

II. Danton . 277 

III. The Feast of the Supreme Being 290 

IV. The Fall of Robespierre 308 

V. A Chapter of Episodes: — 

i. Robespierre as a Poet 324 

ii. Robespierre's Private Life with the Family of Duplay 325 

iii. The Revolutionary Calendar 335 

iv. " Which ? " By Francois Coppee 342 

V. Dogs in the Revolution 343 

ISooit V. 

THE CLERGY OF FRANCE DURING THE 
REVOLUTION. 

I. Exiles for Conscience' Sake 348 

II. A Conventional Bishop 355 

III. A Protestant Pastor 362 

530ofe VI. 

LAFAYETTE AND HIS FAMILY. 

I. Lafayette's Career 373 

II. Deaths of the Ladies of Madame de Lafayette's 

Family 390 

asook VII. 

LOUIS XVII. 

I. The Dauphin in the Temple 401 

II. Historic Doubts as to the Fate of Louis XVII. 408 

III. The Lost Prince 421 



Index 443 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Marie Antoinette Frontispiece 

Thomas Waters Griffith To face page lo 

gouverneur morris „ „ 22 

Thomas Paine „ „ 50 

James Monroe „ „ 56 

Charles Maurice Talleyrand „ „ 60 

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney „ „ 66 

Henri Masers de Latude „ „ 70 

Madame de Pompadour „ 90 

Madame Necker „ „ 102 

Louis XVI , „ 132 

Duchesse d'Angouleme and the Dauphin . „ ,, 146 

Marie Antoinette „ „ 154 

Count Axel Fersen „ 164 

•Madame Elisabeth „ „ 174 

Princesse de Lamballe „ „ 184 

Louis XVI „ „ 198 

Marie Antoinette leaving the Tribunal . „ „ 232 

Marat „ „ 244 

Charlotte Corday „ „ 262 

Danton „ „ 278 

Robespierre „ „ 308 

Henri Gregoire, Bishop of Blois , „ 356 

Jean Paul Rabaut „ „ 362 



Lafayette 



374 



Madame de Lafayette , „ 380 

Louis XVII „ ,,402 

Duchesse d'Angouleme „ „ 416 

Rev. Eleazer Williams , „ 422 



MY SCRAP-BOOK 

OF 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 



BOOK I. 

REMINISCENCES OF AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN 
RESIDENT IN PARIS FROM 1791 TO 1799- 

I. Thomas Waters Griffith: he goes to France. 

II. August AND. September, 1792. 

III. His Imprisonment. 

IV. Life in Paris under the Directory. 



CHAPTER L 

THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH : HE GOES TO FRANCE. 

THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH, who was born in 
Baltimore in 1767, and died in the same city in 1834, 
left behind him several printed books of which he was the 
author, many papers and letters of historical interest, and a 
copious account of fifty years of his own life, eight years of 
which time he passed in France during the stormy days of 
the French Revolution. As a merchant resident in Havre, 
and subsequently U. S. Consul at the same port, he had it in 
his power frequently to favor the escape oi emigres ; and Louis 
XVHL, in recognition of these services, sent him the Cross of 
St. Louis in 1816. Mr. Grjfifith says little, however, of such 
things in his Journal. In 1799, during the disputes between 
the United States and the Directory, he quitted France, to 
which country he never returned. He was afterwards sent 
on a mission to Hayti, of which he has given an interesting 



lO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

account in his Journal. Tlie manuscript ends in 1821, 
after wliich time he led till 1834 an uneventful life as a pub- 
lic-spirited and useful citizen of Baltimore. 

That my readers may know what manner of man was this 
young eye-witness of the French Revolution, from the au- 
tumn of 1 79 1 to 1799, I here introduce his Revolutionary 
experience by a few extracts concerning his early life in the 
first pages of his Journal. It begins thus : — 

The Proprietary of Pennsylvania had taken so much 
pains to cultivate the place of his first settlement in that 
province that the population soon increased by immigration. 
Early in the eighteenth century came out a colony of Welsh 
Baptists from England, who took up a considerable body of 
land on the head waters of Christern Creek. They had 
brought with them their own pastor, the Rev. John Griffith, 
my great-grandfather, and they at once erected a brick 
church, and set aside land for its support. The colonists 
retained their habits of industry and honest simplicity. They 
were a rural population fifty miles distant from the port of 
Philadelphia^ and they long preserved their native (Welsh) 
language, in which indeed I have often heard them converse 
with fluency and pleasure. 

My father, Benjamin Griffith, when he had acquired a 
small capital, settled down in Baltimore, and married Rachel, 
daughter of Thomas Waters, who was also of Welsh extraction. 
I was the only child of this marriage, my young mother 
dying in Baltimore shortly after my birth. I was then sent 
as soon as possible to the care of my grandparents in Ches- 
ter Co., Pennsylvania, who lived within sight of Valley Forge. 
In those days imported convict servants were employed in 
Maryland, and an Irish girl of this description was sent to 
take charge of me in Pennsylvania. Such servants were often 
persons of the worst character, who brought crime and dis- 
order into peaceful families. My nurse was of this descrip- 
tion, and her conduct towards me, her unfortunate charge, 
betrayed such criminal designs that my protectors got rid of 
her as soon as possible. Not long after, she was tried for 
murder at Chester, convicted, and executed. 




THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. 



THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. n 

My father married again and had a large family, two 
daughters ^ and five sons. I take pleasure in reflecting on the 
respect my ancestors had acquired by their uniform integrity, 
and their religious and benevolent deportment. My father, 
Benjamin Griffith, was an outspoken enemy to British taxa- 
tion, and when our Revolutionary troubles broke out, and 
troops were raised in Baltimore and Pennsylvania, he at once 
volunteered his services, while his family was moved from 
Baltimore to a place of safety. 

When in 1776 the British army passed within two miles 
of my grandfather's house, and halted a day or two south of 
the Valley Forge, I well remember the appearance of the 
Hessians, who came looking for Colonel Denvers, who had 
married my aunt. Not only did they plunder our house and 
barn, but they went so far as to put a halter round my grand- 
fathers neck, alleging that he would not tell them where the 
rebel colonel was. This, in fact, he did not know, the colonel 
being at that time at the American headquarters then moving 
from place to place in advance of the enemy. To Mrs. Den- 
vers and her infant boy (who they knew was named George 
Washington) they were civil enough ; and also to myself, 
although I was not a little alarmed at their strange language 
and long whiskers. I thought them savages, and very dread- 
ful. When scouting parties came it was necessary to spread 
before them quantities of bread, butter, cheese, and such 
drinks as the house afforded. The foraging parties gave out 
that all they took should be paid for in Philadelphia, and my 
grandfather took their receipts, but nothing was ever received. 
Not long after the British left to occupy Philadelphia, the 
same ground was occupied by American troops ; and Colonel 
Denvers' house became the headquarters of General Potts, 
whose orderly conduct and social manners made him a great 
favorite among us. 

After the battle of Gerraantown, in which my father served 
with the Baltimore troop, he was sent to bring back to Balti- 
more the remains of his commander, General Cox, whom he 

1 The younger daughter married, in 1S13, Randolph Wallace Lati 
mer of Baltimore. — E. W. L. 



12 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

had interred upon the battlefield. He took this opportunity, 
as I was then ten years old, of reclaiming me from my grand- 
parents, and took me home to be placed under the care of 
his second wife, who was my mother's cousin. 

I missed, however, the freedom of country life, and pined 
for the farm of my grandfather. But thus it happened that 
I was spared all sight of the sufferings of the Revolutionary 
army in the terrible winter of 1777-78, when, half-naked 
and half-famished, our soldiers encamped during the bitter 
winter months between the Heights looking down on Valley 
Forge and the Schuylkill. 

It was the year 1776, and I was sent to school in Balti- 
more, but I often changed my teachers, who were forced to 
give up teaching for various causes ; one, — Mr. Laurence 
Bathurst, who was a good man and an excellent instructor, 
— because he was a Roman Catholic. At that time nothing 
was taught in those schools but English reading, writing, and 
ciphering, and there was a great scarcity of teachers of any 
kind. It was a fortunate circumstance, I think, for the estab- 
lishment of free institutions in the United States that the state 
of society at that period was rather patriarchal than refined. 
Children were under great restraint to parents ; their manner 
of living was plain ; their desires limited ; and the rules of 
justice, with the fear of God, were implanted in the youthful 
mind by the general use of the Bible and Testament as 
reading-books in the schools. 

When I had attained the age of fourteen I was sent to a 
superior school in Delaware. The whole yearly expense of my 
boarding and tuition was about eighty dollars. The fare was 
very scanty, but we had at least some tea and sugar after the 
French alliance and the change of the currency from paper 
money to specie ; whereas before that our diet was confined 
to bread and milk, or other plain food, to which no doubt 
I owe a length of days which my infancy by no means prom- 
ised, and certainly a disposition to be thankful for any kind 
of sustenance a bountiful Creator may provide for me. 

At this school I made progress in learning, and was held 
to have had success in elocution, so that Governor Van Dyke 



THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. 13 

of Delaware, who was present at one of our school celebra- 
tions, had the complaisance to advise my being kept at 
school and placed where I might study law as my profession. 
But a year or two later, when an offer was made me of going 
into the office of a relative who was a Baltimore lawyer, my 
father told me plainly (being moved thereto, I think, by the 
strict religious opinions of his wife) that in his opinion the 
profession was not compatible with Christian duty. There 
can, I think, be no doubt that some professions afford less 
security against temptation than others, and perhaps that 
of the law is the worst in this respect. Still, some lawyers 
have been called honest, and it depends on any man under 
Divine Providence to guard himself, and make his profession 
honest and even honorable so far as depends on himself. 

At the school in Delaware we had occasional private 
theatricals ; on one occasion I acted Marius in Addison's play 
of " Cato," and the Mock Doctor in an after-piece. The 
news of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis was celebrated by 
burning thirteen tar barrels elevated on poles in our school- 
yard. 

I was taken at sixteen from that school, — alas ! too young ; 
but my father had not abandoned the idea of completing my 
education. An intimacy had sprung up between himself and 
some French officers during their stay in Baltimore, and this 
induced him to wish that I should acquire the French lan- 
guage. He had indeed promised M. Louis, Commissioner- 
General, who had been quartered in his house in 1781, to 
send me to France, and put me under his care. I was there- 
fore placed at a school where I could learn French, and in 
1783, peace being restored with the acknowledgment of 
American independence, a sudden impetus was given to com- 
merce, building, and general improvement in Baltimore. 
My father filled several of the municipal offices, and I was 
placed in a counting-house to learn book-keeping. But my 
father, wishing to open for me a more extensive field of im- 
provement, sent me to Philadelphia to be placed in the 
counting-house of Mr. John Field. He was a member of 
the Society of Friends, and expressed himself " wilHng," as 



14 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

he said, " to take the youth ; " but he demanded a premium 
of eight hundred dollars. This my father, with his large fam- 
ily by his second wife, was unable to pay. All my life I have 
been somewhat anxious to be smartly dressed, and my appear- 
ance, as I heard afterwards, was in part the cause of the high 
premium demanded, for Mr. Field observed that from my looks 
he was led to consider my father as a wealthy man ; and that, 
dress as I might, I should have to make fires and sweep out 
the store for some time. To this I should have offered no 
objection, but the sum asked for my premium was too great. 
I was therefore placed in Baltimore with a merchant recently 
arrived from Liverpool. 

Besides attending to business in a way which I was led to 
believe was wholly satisfactory to my employer, I found time 
to take lessons in French, dancing, and psalmody, also in 
instrumental music for a short time ; but the latter was par- 
ticularly discouraged by my employer, who took occasion to 
say in my presence that a good merchant and a good musi- 
cian could not be combined in the same person. Therefore 
my fiddle was laid aside with the approbation of my father, 
although he was particularly fond of music. He was always 
consulted by me in matters of amusement as well as business, 
and his will was ever a law to me, not only from the awe in- 
spired by his occasional rebukes, but from the gratitude ever 
due to an affectionate and prudent father. He was at that 
time much influenced by his wife, who had recently joined 
the Baptist communion. My father greatly revered the 
character of an open professor of religion, though he never 
embraced it himself He cheerfully hired seats in the Epis- 
copal and Presbyterian churches, until about this time a 
stated minister was procured for the Baptist Society. I had 
myself been baptized in my infancy by the rector of St. Paul's 
Church. I had not, however, at the period of which I write, 
formed any decided religious sentiments, but was induced 
from a slight knowledge of classical literature rather to incline 
to the theology of heathenism. This tendency to skepticism 
was probably stimulated by the suspicions of my father, who 
at this time exhibited much anxiety concerning my religious 



THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. 15 

opinions. I did not, however, relax in my attendance on 
public worship, nor allow the slightest want of respect to 
appear in my conduct towards religion and its professors. 

When I attained my twentieth year and received a clerk's 
salary, I was eager to pursue my acquaintance with foreign 
languages, and boarded first with a German, afterwards with 
a French family. I made one observation which I think I 
have never seen elsewhere; namely, that there are in these 
languages no terms of swearing exactly corresponding to our 
English cursing. 

I occasionally looked into Mr. Murphy's Circulating Li- 
brary, but I did not subscribe. My father's collection of 
books was limited, chiefly divinity. I read with great inter- 
est Hume's "History of England" and the "Spectator." 
To this last I was indebted for the general knowledge of 
manners with which I commenced life. I also belonged to 
a debating society of young men as little advanced as myself, 
and became a member of the first Abolition Society, at this 
time started in Baltimore, and in its establishment I took 
much interest. 

The people of Baltimore, during the first years that suc- 
ceeded the war, grew faster in wealth than in discretion. In 
the course of three years a reaction came. The country 
was exhausted of capital to pay for excessive importations. 
Each State was seeking relief for itself, and great fears were 
entertained lest we should be subject to taxation in passing 
from one State to another. People of property were com- 
pelled to reduce their expenses, and the working classes were 
destitute of employment. The Treasury of the Union was 
empty, and could not be replenished by funds from the States, 
for the States had relied on duties collected in their ports ; 
these daily diminished, and pubhc creditors were either put 
off or paid in some States by a further issue of paper, — an 
expedient that afforded only temporary relief. But there 
was little of this paper in circulation. Baltimore had been 
without a bank until nearly this period, and all large pay- 
ments were made in bags of heavy coin. 

Under these circumstances my employer diminished as 



1 6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

much as possible his expenses; and, unfavorable as the 
times were, I embarked in business on my own account. 
My capital consisted only of my savings ; but my character 
for integrity and industry stood me in good stead, and on 
the whole I succeeded far better than could have been ex- 
pected. I also, about this time (1790), began to send com- 
munications to the newspapers. My opinions were those of 
a Federalist ; and it is with some pride I can add that the 
same political principles have been my guide and standard 
throughout life. 

I had occasionally visited my respected grandfather, who 
was living in Philadelphia ; also New York and Alexandria, 
with a desire to find one of these places suitable for my 
future business ; but I finally concluded on going to France 
and establishing myself in one of the French seaports, where 
I could receive consignments from America. 

This determination was greatly strengthened by the admi- 
ration with which at that time (1790) I viewed the first steps 
taken in France towards the establishment of a free govern- 
ment, — a sentiment in which, it may be said, every man in 
America partook at that period, including my aged grand- 
father. 

Although Mr. Adams had forcibly pointed out the dangers 
that might arise from uncurbed democracy, and our own 
General Government had been modelled on his principles, 
the true position of things in France was not even suspected 
in America ; indeed, every act of the Constitutional Assembly 
was enthusiastically admired. There was no republication in 
America of the speeches of the more conservative members, 
which might have corrected our ignorant enthusiasm ; while 
the splendid declamations of Mirabeau, which were all re- 
printed, made us think that Frenchmen were fitted for a gov- 
ernment more hberal than our own. 

Personal attachment to Louis XVI. was, however, very 
general in the United States, for the services he had so lately 
rendered us ; and many no doubt thought it likely that a 
British Constitution, with a limited monarchy, would be the 
blessing France would derive from the Revolution. The vio- 



THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. 1 7 

lent acts of revenge which were committed against families 
residing in chateaux in the country were not fully known to 
us ; and by this time they had partially ceased, the great body 
of the nobles having emigrated. The converting of the im- 
mense tracts of land held by the clergy and the monks to the 
relief of poor cures and their parishioners, long oppressed by 
taxation, was approved by our own people, many of whom 
looked on these things as a repetidon of what had been 
done in England in the days of the Reformation by our 
ancestors. 

My grandfather spoke often of the three wars in which 
England had been engaged with France during his lifetime, 
one of which, if not two, had brought strife to his own door ; 
and though he devoutly prayed that peace should pervade 
the whole earth, he foresaw, as he often told us, that before 
his death he should see another war. 

During my frequent visits to Philadelphia I had seen 
among my relatives a young lady who was my cousin by the 
mother^^ side, and who was about two years younger than 
myself. She appeared to me more charming than any other, 
and she seemed inclined to favor my partiality. She main- 
tained a regular correspondence with me, until at last I con- 
ceived that I had only to ask to obtain her hand. I felt I 
could not be happy without her. This it was that induced 
me to dispose of my business in Baltimore in order to fix 
myself in Philadelphia. 

In Philadelphia I persevered in my attentions to my 
cousin until I discovered that she was actually engaged 
(and had been so for some time) to another gentleman. 
This, though perhaps a fortunate thing for a young man in 
my circumstances, wounded my self-love and in every way 
did me an injury. Possibly my vanity may have led me to 
put flattering constructions on a woman's mere politeness, 
though I still think it was not excusable in my fair cousin to 
continue such a correspondence after an engagement without 
an avowal of it ; nor do I think she was justified in soliciting 
my influence with her parents in favor of my rival. This did 
not reconcile me to my disappointment. All further inter- 



1 8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTIO.V. 

course ceased from that moment ; -^ and as absence and new 
faces were most likely to obliterate the recollection of her 
attractions from my mind, I decided, as I have said, to seek 
my fortunes in France, taking leave of my relatives, and 
especially of my dear and aged grandfather, who parted from 
me with much solemnity, warning me to be careful, sober, 
and just in my transactions ; to put my trust in God ; and to 
remember that if (as he said) the rolling stone should gather 
no moss, there was always a home for me under his roof in 
Philadelphia. As for me, the tears rushed down my cheeks 
as from the eyes of a child six years old. 

Georgetown, in the District then laid out for the seat of 
our General Government, being the best place in which to 
purchase good yellow tobacco, I went there, and embarked 
seventeen hogsheads in the hope of making something by 
them, and I sailed with them in the ship " George," Captain 
Wildes, belonging to Mr. Theodore Lyman of Boston, at the 
latter end of August, 1791. 

Before the ship had been long at sea the necessity of 
a superintending Providence impressed itself upon my mind, 
and I forever ceased to consider it a matter of indifference 
whether there were twenty gods, or the One God. 

Our passage was boisterous and tedious. Anxious to 
learn the situation of affairs in Europe that I might judge 
of my future prospects, I persuaded the captain to land me 
at Dover, whence I went on by a night coach to London. 

In London, besides attending to my business, I did the 
usual sight-seeing, catching a ghmpse amongst other things 
of King George IIL as he skipped into his carriage, and was 
amazed by the rapidity of his movements. 

In London an American gentleman associated in the 
shipping business at Havre, with Mr. Francis Taney, pro- 
posed to me to assist them for a while. I was glad to accept 
this offer, but I knew I could not be very useful to them, nor 
prosecute my intention of establishing myself in France, 

^ The miniature of this lady now hangs over my mantel-piece. It 
was taken from his pocket-book after his death, fifty years after the 
cruel disappointment he has here recorded. — E. W. L. 



THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. 1 9 

until I had acquired a more familiar knowledge of the lan- 
guage of the country than I had been able to obtain by 
reading and translating •' T^l^maque." 

Although it was the close of 1791, and the Revolution 
was well on its way in Paris and its surrounding provinces, 
Normandy was not very much disturbed. Havre was still 
garrisoned by several Swiss regiments, the officers of which 
were very accomplished, and maintained excellent discipline ; 
but the National Guard, lately established, performed some 
duties, and as every one was obliged to serve in this new 
militia, if called upon, I did not find myself exempt, and 
had to engage a substitute from time to time. 

After staying some weeks in Havre, I decided to go to 
Bolbec, about twenty miles distant from it on the Paris 
road, where a respectable school was kept by a priest, still 
unmolested, in an old abbey. Most of the scholars were 
the young sons of West Indian planters. 

I found the landscape in Normandy rural and pleasing. 
The highways were excellent. The country was studded 
with farmhouses surrounded by apple orchards. I saw, too, 
young children leading cows to pasture by the wayside. 
But I was surprised to learn that no butter was made to sell. 

Bolbec had a cotton factory, for Normandy is manufac- 
turing as well as agricultural. I found there a young gentle- 
man from Boston of the Russell family, who, like myself, was 
boarding in this quiet village for the sake of learning French. 
We were received into the house of a surveyor who occupied 
part of the old abbey, and we paid at the rate of ^260 a 
year for board and instruction, the young ladies of the family 
undertaking the latter, though we also hired the services of 
a master. 

I made such progress that at the end of two months I 
was able to return to Havre ; and from that time I was able 
to speak and write French almost as if it were my native 
language. 

Many of the characteristics of the Normans are no doubt 
derived from the blood of their Norse ancestors. Amongst 
the French they are distinguished by their sagacity and love 



20 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

of cicier, to which the climate, being colder than most other 
parts of France, may incline them. I found them a plain, 
industrious, frugal people, clad as their ancestors, it was said, 
had been from time imraemorialj in drab cloth, broad- 
brimmed hats, and wooden shoes. The females owe to the 
climate the fairest complexions in France. They all wear 
pyramidal caps, of mushn or lace, with lappets hanging 
down the back. Their weddings are almost as solemn as 
their funerals. They go to church in pairs, youths and 
girls ; but on their return the friends of the bridal couple 
keep open house with feasting and dancing for many days. 

The poultry, fruit, and meats of Normandy are excellent ; 
fish and oysters also are procured from the British Channel. 
Normandy left to itself would never have become revolution- 
ary. Its people were conscious of no intolerable oppression. 

So far the events in Paris had been to the quiet inhabitants 
of Bolbec little more than mere news. It will be recollected 
that in the summer of 1791 Louis XVI. had been stopped 
near the frontier at Varennes in an attempt to fly from 
France, and that he was brought back to Paris. There the 
uncertainty felt as to his real views was the cause of sus- 
picion. Doubts marred the enjoyment that the nation had 
begun to take in the Constitution and the new state of 
things. 

News of the flight to Varennes, which took place June 
21, had not reached America at the close of August, when I 
began my voyage, so that I was quite ignorant of what had 
so materially changed the face of affairs. I began to find it 
difficult to form any opinion concerning the Revolution in 
progress. On this subject I found my two most intimate 
French acquaintances — the surveyor and the abbe — at 
variance, but with this difference : the surveyor was boister- 
ous and outspoken enough, while the abb6 was afraid to 
say much, even to Russell and myself, because we were not 
subjects of a monarchy. With my friends at Havre I con- 
tinued to hope for the success of the liberal principles 
intended to be established by the new Constitution, without 
reference to a republican form of government, such as had 



THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. 21 

been established in our own country. And these appeared 
to be the sentiments of the merchants and people with whom 
1 associated. 

At Havre and at Bolbec I accompanied my friends to 
church, for, in whatever language God was worshipped, the 
place was sacred to me ; and I thought I gained in piety by 
my presence there, though I was ignorant of what I heard, 
the service being in Latin everywhere. 

The commerce of Havre was chiefly with the West Indies, 
including formerly much of the trade in unfortunate Africans. 
Its population was about 30,000. It had two churches and 
a small theatre. 

In the spring of 1792 I left Havre for Paris, intending to 
establish myself in the south of France, the place to be 
determined by what I might see in the capital. War had by 
this time been declared between France, Germany, Austria, 
and Prussia. Louis XVI. had boldly rejected laws which 
would have deprived him of the means of performing acts of 
charity, but now felt himself compelled to sanction war against 
his own brothers. 

In Paris I went to lodge in a hotel, rather retired, in the 
Rue Gu^negard. I waited at once on Mr. Gouverneur Morris, 
the American minister, and met there, among others, Com- 
modore John Paul Jones, Joel Barlow the poet, James C. 
Mountflorence, and several more Americans. I also met the 
Count d'Estaing, Saint John de Crevecoeur, Esq., formerly 
consul of France in New York, and his son Otto, M. Ray 
de Chaumont and his lady, formerly Miss Cox of Philadelphia, 
and Madame de Lafayette, with some of her family, but the 
marquis was already at the head of an army on the borders 
of the Rhine. 

Commodore Paul Jones died in Paris soon after my 
arrival there ; and I, with the American gentlemen I have 
named, and a small deputation from the National Assembly, 
attended his funeral. His interment took place in one of 
the common cemeteries of the town. There was no priest, 
nor any funeral service, but a few soldiers fired a volley of 
muskets in honor of the naval hero over his grave. 



22 THE FREA'CH REVOLUTION: 

My stay in Paris was prolonged by my great interest in the 
stirring events of the time, until my finances became low, 
when, remembering how much my country owed to France 
for her aid in resisting England, I began to consider a plan 
for joining the army under General Lafayette. I looked 
with admiration on the services the general had rendered to 
the cause of liberty^ both in my own country and in France. 
I was moreover influenced by Major Mountflorence, who 
had served in the North Carolina Line. I therefore agreed 
with that gentleman that we should consult with Mr. Morris, 
our minister, and, if agreeable to him, go to camp with 
recommendations that he might furnish us to General Lafay- 
ette, and obtain suitable employment in the French army, 
under his command, if possible. But Mr. Morris, though he 
had not been much longer in France than either of us, filled 
a post, and occupied a station, which enabled him to appre- 
ciate the state of public affairs, and see further into futurity 
than ourselves ; besides which, genius and judgment he was 
known to possess. 

When we made our plan known to him, he politely 
tendered us the letters for Lafayette, but advised us most 
earnestly to decline them for a few weeks, declaring propheti- 
cally that the Constitution would be crushed, and the 
marquis be overthrown with the king at the same time. 
This counsel alarmed Major Mountflorence as well as myself. 
We agreed to postponement, and never again thought of 
joining an army towards which the marquis had been 
accused of treachery, and from which at last he was forced 
to fly, having risked his life in Paris to resent insults to the 
king on the 20th of June preceding. 

The blood of the Count d'Estaing, Count Dillon, Count 
Beauharnais, Baron Custine, and others whose names are 
recorded in the annals of our struggle for liberty, was subse- 
quently basely shed. They were all men to whom the 
American people owe eternal gratitude. In France Louis 
XVI. had by this time (July, 1792) excited feelings not only of 
distrust but enmity ; but Americans thought tenderly of Louis 
XVL, precipitated from his throne, — that throne from which 




GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 



24 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

selves only, and a very few of them, gorged with the blood 
of the moderate party in May, 1794, alone could have brought 
about a counter-revolution. Yet even then soldiers organ- 
ized to put down massacres always trembled for their lives 
in the event of their own success. 

The factions of Orleans, of Pe'tion Mayor of Paris, of 
Brissot, who was of the Philosophical School, of CoUot 
d'Herbois the comedian, and of Danton and Robespierre 
(who wanted nothing less than control of the government), 
prepared for an attack which they had planned on the 
palace, by calling to Paris in the summer of 1792 detach- 
ments of ignorant provincials, who were told, and made to 
believe, that they would receive in the capital complete 
military equipments, and be marched to the frontier. Such 
of them as had arrived in Paris by July 14, 1792, received 
the name of Fed^res. They attended the celebration of the 
day, with the whole body of the National Guards of Paris 
and a few regular troops. The king and his ministers were 
to renew their declarations of fidelity to the Constitution on 
the Champ de Mars on that occasion. 

I witnessed this act, if it could be said to be " witnessed " 
by one among a hundred thousand spectators standing upon 
earth banks at least two hundred yards from the platform 
erected in the centre of the amphitheatre for the different 
members of the government and high officers of the city, 
civil and miHtary. The king was but coldly received ; and 
General Lafayette had already become so obnoxious to the 
populace that his name was freely contrasted with that of the 
Mayor Petion. To me it was exceedingly mortifying to find 
that such a man as Pe'tion had supplanted Lafayette in the 
confidence of the majority of the populace, not only on his 
own account, but because it was an evidence of a disposition 
to disparage early and devoted patriotism, and exhibited a 
disposition incompatible with those principles on which the 
Constitution was founded, or the existence of any permanent 
government derived from the people could be based. 

Nevertheless the general made one last effort to save the 
government, by coming from camp to testify his horror of 



THOMAS WATERS GRIFFITH. 25 

the insults offered to the king, and to advise such measures 
as might avert another 20th of June. But his influence 
as a patriot, which could have dispersed a mob in 1789, 
proved now unavailing, and it was scarcely known he was 
in Paris till he was gone.^ 

Some days after this I went to a public dinner given by 
Santerre, an officer who was afterwards Commandant of the 
National Guard, to the F^dere's, on the Place de la Bastille, 
of which State Prison there still existed some remains. 
The men all thought that they were to be marched to the 
frontier as soon as a sufficient number of volunteers could 
be collected, and in fact they were soon joined by two 
or three regiments from Marseilles under an officer called 
Westermann. These men brought with them the celebrated 
Marseilles Hymn, first heard in Paris when sung by them. 
They had committed many acts of violence upon their route, 
and brought with them far other views than those an- 
nounced by the air. They came prepared for revolution. 

I was standing on the steps of the Church of St. Eus- 
tache when they filed past with their arms and baggage. 
Suddenly I was told in a very peremptory manner to take 
off my cockade, which was made of ribbon, as were other 
cockades worn by many citizens. I could not imagine how 
it could offend them, since to be without a cockade was 
a sign of sympathy with royalty, which no one would have 
ventured to exhibit. I was at last kindly told by other 
spectators near me that I must get a worsted one, like 
a soldier, silk being considered too aristocratic by these 
advanced radicals. 

Some of the National Guard in the part of the city inhab- 
ited by the more wealthy and more loyal citizens encountered 
the Marseillais in the Champs Elysees, and not being so 
ready to submit to dictation as I had been, a fight ensued, 
in which some lives were lost. After this, in order to 
protect the Royal Family in the Tuileries from the daily 
insults of such pretended patriots, the palace was repre- 
sented as national property, and the terraces of the gardens 

1 P"or a further account of Lafayette see Book VI., Chapter I. 



26 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

were encompassed with tricolored ribbons, instead of guards. 
The tricolor ribbon was respected, and tlie mob was thus 
excluded from the plots of ground immediately under the 
windows of the palace. 

The Hall of the Legislative Assembly was a wooden 
building which had been erected for a riding-school. It 
stood on the north side of the garden of the Tuileries, and 
was separated from it by a terrace thirty feet wide. The 
hall contained a gallery for spectators, which was daily 
frequented to overflowing by men and women of the worst 
description. It was the policy of the leaders of the factions 
to gratify these people by bold and false accusations of the 
government and every person the government employed. 
These stories they knew would obtain general circulation, 
with additions, through such auditors. It was in this place 
that the gravest suspicions were thrown out against the 
fidelity of the king and the virtue of his consort. With the 
same treacherous view General Lafayette was slanderously 
charged with having poisoned some of his soldiers about 
this period ; but he had still a sufficient number of friends 
in the Legislative Assembly to procure a Committee of 
Investigation, which, after visiting the camp, reported that, 
if any of his soldiers had been poisoned, it was caused 
by stained glass from windows in a church in which a 
quantity of provisions had been stored. And that ended 
the matter. 

Hearing some individuals of the kind I have mentioned 
as frequenting the gallery of the Legislative Assembly, 
repeating to other persons who were walking on the terrace 
of the garden of the Tuileries that overlooks the river, 
these refuted charges, I ventured to explain the circum- 
stances. I was hooted at, and thought it prudent to retire 
for safety. 



CHAPTER II. 

AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS IN 1 792. 

A LTHOUGH the Municipal Government of Paris had 
■^"^ petitioned for the suspension or removal of Louis XVI., 
and their petition had produced no action on the part of the 
Assembly, it was very evident that his removal or dethrone- 
ment would soon be attempted by force. 

Early on the 9th of August, 1792, the tocsin was rung in 
the eastern part of the city, and in the suburbs ; and the 
National Guard was assembled at the bridges and other sta- 
tions, while the Swiss Guard received orders to defend the 
palace with a detachment of the National Militia. At the 
same time, gentlemen attached to the royal family and 
Constitution went to the palace, prepared for what might 
happen. This was sanctioned by officers of the Department 
of the Seine, as well as by the Municipal Government, and 
indeed by a majority of the Legislature. Some members, 
however, plotted very successfully to detain many of the 
Swiss Guard at their barracks in the country, -"^ leaving only 
about eight hundred of the Guard at the palace under Major 
Bachman, who, with the National Guard (there were at that 
time no regular troops in Paris), were under the command 
of M. Mandat. 

I went at nightfall with Mr. Corbin, a young gentleman 
from Virginia who had lately become my fellow-lodger, to 
ascertain in the streets what was likely to happen. We went 
first to the Jacobin Club, the seat of the chief faction. It 

1 We now know that the larger part of the Swiss Guard was de- 
tained at Courbevoie on the Seine, to serve as escort to the king and 
his family, who, it was hoped, might take advantage of arrangements 
made to effect their escape. — E. W. L. 



28 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

was at the old convent of the Jacobite monks. Then we 
went to the Place du Carrousel, on the east front of the 
palace. The Hall of the Jacobins, into which we were ad- 
mitted, — for we had disguised ourselves as Fede'r^s, — con- 
tained a few other such volunteers. Some private letters 
from soldiers in the camp were read ; and it was declared 
during the debate that the mob waited only for the legis- 
lators to lead it on, to commence an attack on the palace ; 
also, that even then the Sections were assembled at their 
several Section-houses. 

The king's guards were under arms in the Carrousel when 
we quitted the Jacobin Club late at night, and we felt per- 
suaded that with these men at their posts, the assailants, if 
they did attack, would be repulsed. 

By eight o'clock in the morning, however, the crowd of 
Fede're's and rabble had so swollen that the mob began the 
attack by a discharge of artillery on the guards within the 
Carrousel. I was not awake until I heard the reports of 
the cannon ; for I had not retired until morning, having 
passed the night in the streets. I rose immediately, and 
proceeded to the Quai opposite the Louvre, where I saw 
as much of the contending parties as I could have done 
from any place in the city. I could not, however, see the 
Swiss or others stationed behind or within the palace.^ 
Danton and his coadjutors had forced the city authorities 
to give up their scarfs of office and resign their commis- 
sions to them. Placing the mayor under arrest, they 
assumed his functions, ordering the National Guard to 
" dismiss," and M. Mandat, their commander, to repair to 
the Hotel de Ville. There, when he appeared, he was in- 
stantly murdered. 

The officers of the National Guard, being thus left without 
a head, became confused, and the men left their posts for 
their homes. Scarcely one man in uniform appeared among 
the mob, who had compelled many private individuals, and 
even strangers, to join them. Among these was one of my 

1 For an account of what was going on within the palace, see a 
subsequent extract in this book from Carlyle's " French Revolution." 



AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS. 29 

friends, a young doctor from Annapolis, who lodged at the 
southeastern extremity of the city. They furnished him 
with a pike. 

The Swiss Guard at the palace continued to fight after the 
royal family had been escorted by a deputation from the 
Assembly to the Hall of Legislation, for they had not received 
the order given by the king to cease firing ; and they actu- 
ally drove the rabble to some distance in every direction. 
The mob, however, after reinforcements had arrived, rallied 
and got possession of the palace, after killing most of the 
Swiss and many of the National Guard, besides private gen- 
tlemen. This they were better able to effect because some 
of the National Guards, who were enraged at seeing men in 
the mob wearing their own uniform, united with the Swiss, 
and, being fired on, seemed under some necessity to take 
part to save themselves. 

After pillaging the palace for a few hours, and conducting 
about two hundred Swiss to prison, the mob retired ; and 
the city became suddenly more quiet than it had been for 
weeks before. 

My friend Mr. Corbin, after we had viewed the flames 
which were set to the barracks in the Carrousel, on meeting 
some of the rabble patrolling, and others with heads upon 
pikes, became alarmed. The insurgents not having had 
time to mature their plans of vengeance, the gates of the 
city remained open ; so he departed for Havre that same 
day. I accompanied him in a hackney-coach across the 
river to the stage office. Our hack had just brought a 
wounded lodger to our house who had escaped from the 
palace. Few carriages were to be seen on the streets except 
those conveying public characters, and the one we procured 
demanded double the usual fare. 

The gentlemen who had devoted themselves to the king 
and Constitution by becoming members of the Cabinet were 
arrested, and were soon after tried and executed. Clermont- 
Tonnerre, and perhaps some others who had opposed the 
Revolution, were assassinated in the streets. It was indeed 
certain death to appear well dressed ; and the Swiss soldiers, 



30 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

whose uniform was scarlet, could not find refuge or safety 
anywhere but in prison. 

Notwithstanding these untoward circumstances, I trav- 
ersed the field of battle and made my way into the palace, 
where the pavement was stained with blood. I was there, 
indeed, before all the bodies of the dead had been removed. 

The public were not permitted to know how many fell on 
either side ; but as several hundred Swiss had spent their 
ammunition before they died or surrendered, the whole num- 
ber of victims must have amounted to several thousand. 

Entering the gallery of the Assembly, which was filled with 
even worse-looking people than usual, I saw for the first time 
Louis XVI. and part of his family, in a box used by the 
reporters. The king was short and robust, of a countenance 
mild and pleasing ; the queen tall, graceful, and handsome ; 
the king's sister plain, but dignified ; and the children deli- 
cate and interesting. None of them manifested any idea of 
the horrid fate which awaited them, but seemed willing to 
conciliate the members by their condescension, — without 
any effect, however, at least upon my neighbors in the gal- 
lery ; one of whom (and a female, too) did not hesitate to 
call the prince a bastard., afid no better than his mother. 

Returning the next day to the vicinity of the Hall of the 
Assembly, I saw the unfortunate royal family set out in 
carriages for the Temple, which was formerly a royal castle, 
but by this time converted into a prison. It was situated in 
a remote, but thickly settled, part of the city. 

Wishing my friends in America to be acquainted with 
these acts, beginning with what I had seen of the reception 
of the king at the Champ de Mars, — events which termi- 
nated the Constitution and the Constitutional Monarchy, — 
I printed an account of them in 1795, and sent all the copies 
to America. 

After I had seen the things I have described, I went to 
wait on Mr. Gouverneur Morris, our ambassador. I found 
at his house a number of gentlemen and ladies, who from 
former intercourse with America, and in many cases services 
rendered to the United States, considered themselves en- 



AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS. 3 I 

titled to protection in the hotel of the minister. Mr. 
Morris had had no communication with the authorities, nor 
had he even been in the streets from the commencement of 
the insurrection, and he expressed some surprise at the dis- 
guise I had assumed to avoid giving offence to the populace. 
After he had received my explanation and had learned my 
views of the situation, he took me into the adjoining room, 
and there stated to me in the following terms, as nearly as 
I can recollect: "The persons you have seen, six or more 
individuals, who have rendered services to our country, or 
are related to such persons, consider themselves in danger 
in their homes, and have taken refuge in my house. Whether 
they will be disappointed of safety here I cannot tell, I 
call you to witness, Mr. Griffith, if my protection of these 
persons should become a matter of reproach to me, here or 
at home (and I have reason to expect it will, from wha-t I 
have already experienced), that I did not invite them to 
come, but that I will not put them out now that they are 
here, let the consequences be what they may." A deter- 
mination which I considered fully justified as much by 
patriotism as by private feeling. And so I expressed my- 
self to the minister. 

The frightful massacres that in three weeks followed the 
insurrection of the loth of August were precipitated by the 
manifesto issued by the Duke of Brunswick, and the ap- 
proach of the Prussian army to Paris. There was a wide- 
spread apprehension that French generals would betray the 
nation. Such a report was dihgently circulated by the 
Revolutionists in the Assembl)', and sustained by inferior 
officers in the army who wanted promotion. The popula- 
tion of Paris, greatly excited, was ready for insurrection, 
fearing which, many respectable citizens set out for the 
French camp to establish a character for patriotism, and 
place themselves above suspicion. By this they also hoped 
to place their families under the protection of the Revolu- 
tionists. This seriously diminished the number of well-dis- 
posed citizens in Paris who might have been the king's 
defenders. 



32 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

For some time after the loth of August the gates of Paris 
were closed, and no one was permitted to leave the city, 
as it was intended to hunt out and take vengeance on a 
number of persons who, from their rank in life, their pro- 
fession, their talents, or their poHtical sentiments, were ob- 
noxious to the insurgents. Members of the late Cabinet, 
who, from devotion to the Constitution or the king, had 
recently accepted office, were the first victims, and some 
were murdered in the streets without the formality of a trial ; 
others were crowded into the common jails to be massacred 
collectively. 

It was on September 2, when several hundred priests of all 
ages, and gentry of all ages and both sexes, had been thus 
collected, that the leaders were selected, the judges and 
executioners were chosen, and a band of hardened villains 
were sent to the prison of La Force, to the Abbaye, and to 
others to commence their fiendish operations. 

I was tempted to go to the Abbaye, but was stopped by 
my landlord, a most worthy citizen, who, returning himself 
when he found it was no longer safe to look on, brought me 
back to the hotel, which was not very far from the Abbaye. 
Many thousands of the citizens of Paris remained ignorant 
of the horrors then enacted within its walls, until they saw 
the remains of slaughtered men and women paraded through 
the streets. 

I myself was at dinner on one of those days with Messrs. 
Mountflorence and Anderson in the Rue St. Honor(^, nearly 
opposite the Palais Royal, then the residence of the Due 
d'Orle'ans, when we were roused from table by a noise in 
the street, and going out saw the head of a female borne up- 
on a pike, and the fragments of a human body dragged 
through the gutter by a few miserable wretches who ap- 
peared infuriated by intoxication and joy. Upon inquiry 
we found that these were the lifeless remains of the young 
and beautiful Princesse de Lamballe, whose flowing hair 
had been fashionably dressed after her head had been 
severed from her body. The head was pushed into the 
faces of passers-by upon the street ; even into carriages 



AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS. 33 

containing others of her sex, who, as may be supposed, 
were for the moment deprived of their senses. 

Elated by their success on the loth of August, excited 
by the defection of Lafayette, and terrorized by the loss of 
Longwy and Verdun, strong posts which had been captured 
by the Prussians, a Revolutionary Government set itself up 
at the Hotel de Ville, Robespierre acting as president, 
Collot d'Herbois and Billaud-Varennes being secretaries. 
The massacre of the prisoners had been by them deter- 
mined on. The volunteers were crying out for the heads 
of their enemies before they could venture, as they said, 
to march against the enemy, and leave their wives and chil- 
dren behind. 

Before this 1 had visited Versailles, about twelve miles 
from Paris, from which the king and royal family had been 
compelled to go to Paris (Oct. 6, 1789) about three years 
before. It was said that Lafayette, commanding the Na- 
tional Guard, had not duly protected these persons, and 
that he should have done more, nine weeks earlier, to pre- 
vent the shedding of blood after the taking of the Bastille. 
I found the residence of the king most splendid. It had 
not, when I saw it, suffered the dilapidation to which it 
afterwards became a prey. 

I went also to St. Denis, a small town six miles east of 
Paris, in the cathedral of which had been deposited the 
corpses of kings, and of distinguished soldiers. The tombs 
when I saw them had been all plundered to obtain lead for 
munitions of war. I recollect seeing no grave but that of 
Turenne undisturbed ; his remains were afterwards removed. 
I saw his tomb with those of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Mira- 
beau in the old Church of Ste. Genevieve, called by the 
Revolutionists the Pantheon, and dedicated, as its inscription 
said, " to the memory of the great men of France by their 
grateful country." 

It was about this same time that the city government 
ordered the demolition of the statues of the sovereigns of 
France standing in different public places, — even that of 
Henri IV., on the Pont Neuf. This statue was equestrian and 

3 



34 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

bronze. I happened to be a witness of the outrage. Work- 
men filed the legs of the horse, and, with a long rope at the 
neck of the king, brought the whole down with a tremen- 
dous crash. The same spirit effaced the initials and the 
insignia of the kings from off the palaces and public 
buildings, and obliged individuals to remove all armorial 
bearings from their houses and carriages. 

The horrors of the months of August and September and 
the loss of rest had thrown me into a slight fever, and the 
further outrages I witnessed determined me to leave Paris. 
Therefore, a few days after the gates were opened, I set out 
with a passport from Mr. Morris, our minister, duly counter- 
signed, in company with a fellow-lodger named Coulanges, 
who had obtained an English pass from some friend, and 
who, as he had been living in the king's palace on the day 
of battle, thought it necessary to take an indirect road to 
reach his home near Rouen in Normandy. 

Until then I had usually travelled unaccompanied by 
friends or acquaintances, and in the public diligences. The 
diligence is a heavy vehicle having room inside for six pas- 
sengers and in front the coupe, which holds three more,^ 
also a covered seat on the top for one beside a guard, 
called the conductor, who takes charge of the baggage 
and goods contained in a basket behind. 

The conductor overlooked the change of horses and the 
conduct of the postilions, who ride on one of the four or 
six horses, booted in iron or steel. The horses are furnished, 
as those for private travelling carriages are, at the post-houses, 
usually about six miles apart. The horses belong to private 
individuals, who purchase from the government the privilege 
of furnishing them. The diligence travels at the rate of 
about four and one half miles an hour, but the two-wheeled 
carts conveying the mail go about six miles per hour. 
Both take charge of valuable effects, of which they guarantee 
the amount, if paid for at the stipulated premium. 

1 The diligences of this period seem to have had no rotunde, a 
compartment behind which carried four passengers. Fifty years later 
the baggage was placed on the top and covered by a tarpaulin. 



AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS. 35 

M. de Coulanges and I now hired a light carriage, and 
took a roundabout route for Versailles. In the evening we 
saw the fire made for burning the clothes of the prisoners from 
Orleans who had been brought to Versailles to be massacred 
that day.-^ We had met on the road some of the murderers 
in wagons lighted by torches, and bearing the heads of 
several victims as trophies, or rather as evidence of their 
claims upon their employers at the capital. It was known 
that some obnoxious gentlemen had been collected at 
Orleans before the dethronement of the king. Orleans was 
thought to be a place where they might be constitutionally 
tried ; but no suspicion had been entertained by me or my 
companion, or indeed by the citizens of Paris, I believe, 
besides those accessory to the horrid scene, of what was 
to be enacted at Versailles on Sept. 9, 1792, or that travel- 
lers on that road would be saluted, as we were that evening, 
by such cannibals, and compelled, as was usual on such 
occasions, to shout applause for their gratification. 

So little disposed to follow the example of the people in 
Paris were the people in the provinces (now the departments) 
that there were at first only a few victims in the southern 
towns of France. To excite the country to deeds of vio- 
lence, it was always found necessary to send out professional 
incendiaries. 

It has been advanced by some, that if the morals of the 
French people had not been neglected by the clergy, a 
disposition to countenance such horrors could not have 
existed. But experience does not often make people wise, 
much less precept, and it is not given to man to convert the 
hearts of sinners. Infidelity had been for fifty years in the 
very air of France. The cures at least — whatever may 
have been the case with the higher clergy — were, in 
general, so virtuous and so zealous that a very great majority 
of people who had arrived at mature life (perhaps nine 
tenths of them) refused to abandon the Sabbath, or join 
in the worship of the new gods and goddesses. They re- 
membered their priests with gratitude, and trembled at 
1 For an account of this atrocity, see a subsequent chapter. 



36 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

oifences which violated the commands of the true God, — 
the God of their fathers.^ 

After having been refused admittance to several public 
houses in Versailles on the night of September 9 which 
followed the massacre, we wandered about the city seeking 
a place to sleep. The city seemed deserted. We saw 
neither man nor woman until, late at night, we were kindly 
received by a private family to whom M. de Coulanges was 
known. The next day we continued our journey to the 
bank of the Seine, below St. Germains ; going thus, as 
it were, across country, that we might not be suspected 
of coming from the capital We also, by way of precaution, 
quitted our carriage and hired a boat, proceeding alternately 
by land and water till we reached the city of Rouen. 

There M. de Coulanges stopped at a friend's house, bid- 
ding me adieu in terms which plainly implied that he never 
expected to see his fellow-traveller again ; which in fact was 
the case, nor do I know what became of the unfortunate 
man, who probably joined his amiable wife and daughter in 
Normandy, and I trust escaped the vigilance of his enemies, 
since Normandy was not distinguished by such acts of vio- 
lence as other parts of France soon after exhibited. 

It is my conviction that the population of Paris was 
as well informed, and had as correct principles, both as 
to pohtics and morals, as the same number of people in 
any place on the surface of the globe, but the Revolution 
had attracted thither philosophes and turbulent spirits from 
every country, and these were the more ferocious because 
they had no personal interest in the welfare of the nation. 
Uniting themselves with a few Frenchmen of the same 
general character, they became the employers of all the 
desperate villains ever to be found in any populous city. 
Until the disorders of the Revolution, no people had appeared 
more contented than the French with the rational liberty 
they were beginning to enjoy under their new constitutional 
government. But as soon as both king and Constitution 

1 See an account of the French clergy exiled to England, in a 
subsequent chapter. 



AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS. 7^*j 

were overthrown, the real patriots - — the men whom France 
and the world looked up to for the support of liberal principles 
— speedily became victims of the anarchy which followed. 

Duly appreciated, there is in every society a great dis- 
proportion between the wise and the weak. Even in Paris 
there were probably fifty ignorant persons for one possess- 
ing knowledge. 

I reached Havre in safety, after the perils of my journey 
from Paris to Rouen, and resumed commercial speculations, 
chiefly in tobacco, with my friend Taney, who had married 
into a French family, — that of M. Govain. 

I was in Havre during the month of January, 1793; in 
other words, during the time of the trial and execution of the 
king. Shortly before war was declared against France by 
England, I went to London for the purpose of attending to 
the purchase and shipment of tobacco. 

Whilst in London I attended some of the debates in 
Parliament, and had the satisfaction of hearing Messrs. Fox, 
Pitt, Burke, Dundas, and Sheridan speak on the declaration 
of war contemplated against France. In that country, the 
Royalists and Moderates having been entirely put down, the 
factions in the convention were determined, as they said, to 
endure nothing but a republican constitution, and, having 
killed their own king, carried their revolutionary warfare into 
every country subject to a different form of government. 

Although the interest elicited by all this in the British 
House of Commons was calculated to bring out all the elo- 
quence and talent of the British Senate, I did not think at 
the time, nor do I now believe, that it surpassed what I had 
heard not long before in our American Congress, from Ames, 
Madison, Smith of Carolina, Vining, and some others, on 
the far less interesting subjects of internal taxation, banking, 
etc. The speech of Mr. Burke was calculated in my opinion 
to make the greatest effect, but he wanted at that time per- 
sonal influence, for his desertion of the Opposition lost him 
his friends on that side, and he had not been long enough a 
supporter of the administration to obtain confidence from its 
friends outside the walls of the Parliament House. 



38 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The people of England had been at first much pleased at 
the prospect that the French would model their government 
after that of Great Britain, but the execution of King Louis 
had disgusted them generally, and great pains were taken 
to manifest their attachment to King George on every 
occasion. 

I was nearly pressed to death descending the steps into 
the pit of Covent Garden Theatre (Drury Lane having been 
destroyed by fire) on a night when the king was to be 
present, but I obtained a good seat, and was much gratified. 
The boxes were crowded by ladies elegantly dressed, and I 
thought them all beautiful, as they certainly were in respect 
of complexion, compared with our ladies in America; but 
both American and French ladies have advantages of person 
and expression of countenance over those of England. 

The king showed the greatest delight at every lively 
incident the play afforded, and heard the national air, " God 
Save the King," in full chorus, until he was tired, and waved 
his hand. Kemble, Palmer, Johnson, and Quick, Mrs. 
Siddons, Mrs. Crouch, Mrs. Esten, and Mrs. Jordan were 
the performers. 

After a pleasant and advantageous visit to England, where 
I made the acquaintance of many Americans settled in 
London, I embarked with my tobacco on a small American 
craft, which took some time to make the voyage to Havre, as 
she grounded repeatedly before getting clear of the Thames. 
My venture, however, proved very successful, and I made a 
second voyage to England. By this time war had been 
declared ; and the American captain of the scow in which 1 
sailed landed me near Dungeness, for the sake of despatch, 
and to avoid the formahties which a state of war had intro- 
duced in the admission of passengers from France. But the 
vigilance of a guard upon the beach had nearly produced 
some unpleasant difficulties. I was followed closely into a 
smuggler's hovel, and was protected from arrest only by the 
courage of my host ; the red-coats insisting that I was a 
Frenchman, and the other insisting that I was no more a 
Frenchman than any of themselves. He afterwards engaged 



AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS. 39 

himself to carry my valise to Romney, which was the first 
post town beyond the Downs — or sands. 

My report of the tobacco market in France was so 
encouraging that other American merchants in London and 
Liverpool joined in shipping a considerable quantity to our 
Havre house. Orders in Council were obtained to permit 
the departure of our vessels with their cargoes, but I was not 
taken before the Secretary at the Foreign Office to be 
examined on the state of affairs in France, as was usual in 
such cases. This voyage also yielded our concern a very 
handsome profit, and my share placed me in a more inde- 
pendent position than has ever been my lot before or since. 
Mr. Taney effected a sale of the tobacco to the Government 
itself for the use of the French army and navy, which, as 
usual, received rations of the article, and had been likely to 
come short of supplies, when a close blockade of the French 
ports should be carried into effect. 

Before leaving London I joined my countrymen on the 
Fourth of July, 1793, to celebrate our independence by a din- 
ner at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street. At this dinner 
there were about eighty gentlemen, including several London 
merchants who were attached to the United States by the 
interest they had in our trade, and regard for the sage 
repubUcan principles of our citizens. This dinner, not 
accompanied by music or any outdoor exhibitions, cost us 
a guinea apiece. 

Boston vessels before the blockade continued to enter 
the port of Havre ; but French merchants had abandoned 
the ocean altogether, and it was lamentable to see their fine 
ships crowding the docks, never again to be sent to sea. 

About this time I abandoned all idea of establishing my- 
self at some port on the Mediterranean. As time went on, 
Mr. Taney became alarmed at the situation of affairs in 
France, both commercial and political, and, contemplating 
a return to America, purchased of the Count d'Estaing the 
lands presented him by the State of Georgia. To receive 
the money due by the Government for its purchase of 
tobacco, and commence Mr. Taney's payments to the 



40 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

count, I again went to Paris ; but preferring to take a pass- 
port from the municipality of Havre, to vvliom my American 
citizenship was well known, 1 left behind me that of the 
American minister, because it was no longer of recent date.-' 
Affairs in France had grown from bad to worse during the 
first nine months of the year 1793. I had been away from 
Paris about a year when I returned to it. The debates in the 
Assembly afforded no evidence of any approaching settle- 
ment of the Government ; the paper money was falling in 
value ; and every citizen between the ages of eighteen and 
twenty-five was liable to be marched to the frontier to oppose 
the Allies, or to the West to fight Frenchmen. In its 
paper money, however, and in its conscription, consisted the 
strength of the French Revolution. But before that period 
France had long been a first-rate military power. A love of 
glory animated the officers, all descendants of the old nobil- 
ity, who kept the soldiers under them in strict subordination. 
The Revolution stimulated a strong desire for promotion 
in the subalterns and non-commissioned officers, many of 
whom became colonels and generals, while a desire for 
plunder stimulated all ranks in the army, from officers high 
in command to private soldiers. Thus the battle of Jemappes 
was successfully fought by a commander who had never 
been heard of before, and the Prussians and Austrians were 
discouraged and checked, being driven beyond the Rhine 
by other generals of equal previous obscurity. These acts 
of national prowess emboldened the Revolutionary leaders 
in Paris. In their first fright, when the Prussians were 
advancing on Paris in the summer of 1792, they committed 
the horrors of the prison massacres, and then, to proclaim 
themselves to all the world as republicans, they proceeded 
to execute their king. Their persecution of the clergy, and 
of all who did not join with them or applaud them, was the 
signal for civil war, which broke out in the West and South 

1 It is highly probable that this passport was lent to some escaping 
emigre, which would account for IVTr. Griffith's subsequent reluctance 
to apply to Mr. Morris. The narrative, however, is careful to conceal 
this, — if it was so. — E. W. L. 



AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER IN PARIS. 41 

of France, in June, 1793, and which continued with occa- 
sional intermissions from that time, until the people were 
prepared, by the imperial despotism of Bonaparte and his 
adherents, for the peaceful reign of Louis XVIII. ; to which 
the soldiery, still longing for spoil, were the last to assent.^ 

Elder brothers, lest they should be called on themselves 
to go to the frontier, urged their juniors to go to camp in 
obedience to the infamous law of the conscription, which 
entailed tremendous penalties on parents if their sons should 
desert, so that more than a million of Frenchmen were in 
the field by the second campaign. 

No treachery to the nation or to a constitutional govern- 
ment was intended by the people of Lower Normandy or 
of Provence, on whom cruel vengeance was taken ; nor can 
the name of Chouan be any disgrace to men of Brittany 
or Anjou ; while the deplorable fate of Charette, Stofflet, 
Lescure, Larochejaquelein, Sombreuil, Broglie, Coster, and 
Georges Cadoudal must excite the sympathy of Frenchmen 
while gallantry and self-devotion receive plaudits everywhere. 

Soon after I arrived in Paris, I went out to Mont Cal- 
vaire, a few miles from the city, to deliver a letter to M. de 
Sulenef, whose son had lately purchased lands in Tennessee, 
and had embarked from Havre. I was observed by the 
village officials with a suspicious eye, and thought by them 
to be an Englishman liable to arrest. Accordingly I was 
arrested the same night while in bed, and sent under charge 
of a gendarme to the Committee of Public Safety, then 
composed of David, Vadier, and others. I was able to 
save myself from being tied and dragged after the mounted 
guard by hiring a cabriolet for both of us to ride in. This 
took place on Oct. 17, 1793, the day after the execution 
of Queen Marie Antoinette. 

I had seen that unhappy lady the day before carried in a 
cart, as I stood upon the Boulevard, where it joins the Rue 

1 Mr. Griffith was a warm adherent of the Restoration ; and to 
him Napoleon Bonaparte never ceased to be the " Corsican monster." 
His reminiscences reflect the feelings of his party in his lifetime. 
— E. W. L. 



42 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

St. Honore ; through this street she came, and down by the 
Church of the Madeleine, to which place her remains were 
brought for interment within sight of the place of execution. 
Misled by the basest slanders, a populace who on her arrival 
in France, twenty years before, had hailed this princess with 
admiration, upbraided her with the most vulgar epithets as 
she went to execution. She was but thirty-eight, and pos- 
sessed of personal charms unequalled at her time of life. 
Perfectly resigned to a fate she had anticipated, abandoned 
apparently by every human friend, she was sustained by 
heaven and viewed her enemies with the calmness and 
dignity of a saint. ■"■ 

The king had been conducted to the same scaffold only 
nine months before, with a numerous and splendid escort, 
but Marie Antoinette, no less a queen, was surrounded by 
the rabble. Louis was conveyed in a handsome coach, and 
in court-hke dress, accompanied by his own confessor; while 
she, attired in a plain white robe and cap, was seated beside 
a religious instructor unknown to her, in a common cart, 
her back to the driver, like the vilest convict, and no one 
dared to utter a prayer or breathe a sigh on her behalf, but 
at the risk of his life. I was actually forced away from a 
situation which would have commanded a full view of the 
guillotine had I remained, to avoid being discovered in a 
state of agitation. But it was only to see the victim, and 
not to witness the execution, that I had gone there. 

Both the 2 1 St of January and the i6th of October were 
days of mourning with all the respectable part of the inhab- 
itants of Paris, and many, to testify their grief at what was 
passing, assembled in the remotest parts of their houses to 
bewail together what none of them could prevent. The 
Princess Elisabeth followed her brother and sister to the 
same block. This princess, sister of the king, had lived 
estranged from the world in some measure by her piety, as I 
heard Mr. Morris feelingly declare, and had been an object at 
which even the tongue of slander had never lisped a reproach. 

^ See a subsequent chapter on the queen's imprisonment and 
execution. 



CHAPTER III. 

HIS IMPRISONMENT IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 

T RETURN now to my own arrest. The Committee of 
■*- Public Safety was too much engaged to examine me 
when I was first brought into Paris, and the guard who had 
arrested me was told to bring me in the evening. 

I spent the day accompanied by this guard in calling to in- 
form some friends of the predicament in which I found myself, 
little doubting, however, that I should soon be discharged. 

Late in the evening I was examined by two members of 
the Public Safety. They were ignorant that Great Britain 
ever permitted commercial intercourse with enemies upon 
any terms ; and although they were told that the policy of the 
English government induced it occasionally to exchange 
with any people, friend or foe, an article of luxury like 
tobacco, with which they were overstocked, for money or for 
other raw material, they would not understand how, by thus 
disposing of American produce shipped to Englishmen as 
a remittance, they obtained payment of debts due them by 
Americans. Such intercourse, however, I told them was 
only permitted to neutrals, such as I was, and my tobacco 
had not only been sold for the use of the French army and 
navy, but that to obtain payment from the French Govern- 
ment was the principal cause of my visit to the capital. 
They then inquired for my American passport, and on being 
told that I had left it at Havre, on receiving that of the 
Municipality, they affected to doubt the authenticity of the 
latter, or hinted that it might have been obtained by some 
imposition or corruption. They therefore sent me to an 
old convent called the Madelonettes, which had been fitted 
up as a public prison, my detention, as they stated, being 
a measure for the public security. 



44 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



Arriving at the prison late at night, I was immediately left 
in a room on the ground-floor with a number of indifferent 
characters, without hght, or any other accommodation than 
a mattress on a guard-house bedstead ; but I was permitted 
on the morrow to join the prisoners above stairs. There I 
found the late minister, Latour du Pin, and a number of the 
first characters in France, besides some of the best perform- 
ers in the late Royal Theatre, — all together about three hun- 
dred males, crowding the house excessively. In two or three 
days, however, I was put into a small room on the second 
floor, which in France they call the first story. I was then 
admitted into the Hall, and allowed to communicate with 
the other prisoners in the daytime. I was supplied with 
good bedding, bread and water, and any other convenience 
or refreshment I chose to pay for. Monsieur M. A. Govain, 
brother-in-law to Mr. Taney, and then a conscript, happening 
to be in Paris, called at the Madelonettes, and undertook to 
direct my passport to be brought from Havre and to execute 
any commissions for me in the city. 

It was not till I found myself separated from this friend by 
bolts and bars, and obliged to converse with him from my 
window upstairs, that I realized the feelings inspired by im- 
prisonment. I saw in many of my companions — who, being 
natives of France, were liable to every persecution — all the 
resignation which good sense and an innocent conscience 
could inspire. Some, indeed, giving themselves up to their 
fate, exhibited a degree of contentment which their hope of 
future reward alone could jusdfy ; others alarmed us by their 
joyous manifestations of indifference, — exhibiting that feeling 
in songs and concerts of music, till even the keeper of the 
house, who fully appreciated the malice of the population 
outside, dreaded lest he should be visited by reproach, or 
some violent attack result in the destruction of his charges. 

Such conduct on the part of men whose lives were in 
jeopardy might induce a hasty conviction that the French 
are essentially a vain, visionary, and fickle people ; but more 
reflection would, I should think, produce a contrary effect. 
Resignation, patience, and resolution I have found, I may 



IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 45 

almost say, uniform traits in the French character. I passed 
seven years in France, observing the minute actions of indi- 
viduals ; but others might draw the same conclusion from 
their performance of literary works requiring the devotion of 
a whole lifetime, the public improvements which have been 
carried on from one generation to another, and the perfec- 
tion to which the French have brought many of the arts and 
sciences. My fellow-prisoners considered themselves already 
beings of another world. The degradation of their country 
was death to them, and they had no desire to prolong life 
on the terms by which it was held by others. 

Becoming at last somewhat impatient, I ventured on the 
29th Vendemiaire (October 20) to address our minister, Mr. 
Morris, though I had not yet received my passport from 
Havre, informing him of the circumstances of my arrest, etc. 

Mr. Morris's answer, dated October 21, declined to attempt 
any interference until the passport was produced or satisfac- 
torily accounted for ; but as the letter is at once an evidence 
of Mr. Morris's official integrity as an American minister, 
and his skill in using the opportunity to counteract the sus- 
picions the French Government had thrown out against him, 
as leaning towards the English with partiality, I give it as I 
received it. The letter, of course, was to be read by the 
prison officials before it was delivered to my hands, and was 
written in the following: words : — 



Monsieur, — Je suis bien fache de voir par la v6tre, du 29, 
que vous etes ddtenu prisonnier. Je crois que si vous aviez 
gardd mon certificat ce malheur ne vous serait pas arriv^. II me 
parait tres possible qu'tine autre personne en soit le possesseur, 
et dans ce cas cette personne vous repr^sentera dans le monde 
comma vous reprdsentez cette personne dans la prison. La 
Nation Francaise accorde aux citoyens des fitats Unis une pro- 
tection pleniere, mais il ne faut pas en abuser; et e'en serait 
un abus de demander votre liberte avant que je n'ai la certitude 
que le certificat que je vous ai donnd ne soit pas k la protection 
d'un Anglais, ou autre Stranger, ou personne suspecte. 

J'ai I'honneur d'etre, monsieur, votre tres humble serviteur, 

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 



46 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

In this letter there is nothing to flatter me, but I give the 
contents entire to show the perversity of things engendered 
by the Revohition, and not to lose an opportunity of holding 
up to public gratitude, as far as depends on me, the slighted 
memory of a statesman by whose attention I was honored, 
who was one of the founders of our Republic, and would 
have been a credit to any nation. 

On October 24 I sent to the minister my passport, and on 
the 27th the Secretary for Foreign Affairs presented to the 
Committee of Public Safety his demand for my discharge, 
while the same day I wrote myself to the Committee. But 
Robespierre and his agents were too much occupied with 
hunting up victims for the Revolutionary Tribunal to pay 
attention to me, or to the minister. Nor was more atten- 
tion paid to a petition got up by Americans in my behalf, 
and signed by Mr. F. L. Taney, Joel Barlow, Mark Leaven- 
worth, James Jones, and Thomas Ramsden ; unless it were 
to transfer me, with about twenty others, — old men and 
foreigners, against whom there were no specific charges, — 
to the old Scotch College in the Faubourg St. Marceau, 
where we could see our friends and enjoy other privileges 
not known in common prisons. 

Having copied the first letter of Mr. Morris in justice to 
him, I copy another in justice to myself. 

A Paris, Dec. 31, 1793, 

Monsieur, — J'ai re9u votre lettre du i^'' Nivose. J'ai reclame 
votre liberty a plusieurs reprises, at je suis persuade que le 
Ministre y a fait attention. La derniere fois que j'ai eu 
I'honneur de le voir il m'a dit que le ddlai dont je me plaignais 
devait etre attribue k la multiplicity des affaires qui occupant 
la Committee. Je viens de lui r^peter mes instances, en deman- 
dant qu'on m'instruisse au moins des causes de votre deten- 
tion. Des qua j'aurai regu une rdponse quelconque je vous 
I'acheminerai. Je suis tr^s sensible \ votre malhaur, et je na 
ndgligerai rien qui puisse ddpandre de moi pour le soulager. 
J'ai I'honneur d'etre, monsieur, 

Votre tr^s humble serviteur, 

Gouv. Morris. 



IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



47 



Colonel Swan of Boston, who had distinguished himself 
by some well-written letters to the Marquis de Lafayette, 
which were printed, was approached by some of my friends ; 
but it was indirectly hinted to that gentleman by some in 
power, that if I was in prison the best service he could ren- 
der me was to let me be forgotten, for fear of worse. The 
same cause prevented him from signing the petition, which 
with this, and one other exception, contained the name of 
every one of my countrymen who ventured to remain in 
Paris. 

The transfer from the Madelonettes to the old Scotch 
College was made in hackney-coaches, our guard gen- 
darmes. Four prisoners, tied two and two, were in each 
coach ; but as I happened to be one of the last, our guard 
concluded enough were secured, and in this way I escaped 
the ignominy. 

We were fairly told that we were to receive great indul- 
gences, but the old French gentlemen had no little suspicion 
that we were actually going to some obscure place to be 
murdered ; and it may be said that the information given us 
by our guard, while passing through the more populous parts 
of the city, was not reassuring. We were told that should 
we attempt a flight they had only to call upon the citizens, 
and they would soon prevent our attempting it a second 
time. 

At the new prison we had free intercourse with each other, 
night and day, and the air of a spacious garden. Amongst 
my chamber companions was an Irish priest of the name 
of Kearney, an excellent scholar and a benevolent man, 
under whom I completed my French studies, and from 
whom I afterwards received very agreeable attentions. 

There were in the house about eighty gentlemen, and it 
happened that the adjoining house was the English Nuns' 
convent, also converted into a prison for about one hundred 
ladies. The gardens were separated by a high wall, and we 
could not enjoy the conversation of the ladies ; but we did 
not fail to visit our belvedere daily, and they their garden, 
from whence we could see one another, and thus be gratified 



48 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

with part of the pleasure society affords. Among the 
prisoners at the Scotch College were Sir Robert Smith, Mr. 
Churchill, son of the English poet, and a Mr. Cameron of 
the ancient Scotch loyalists, besides Mr. Kearney, the Irish 
priest. All these had the good fortune to survive the rigor 
of Robespierre. This was not the case with all my compan- 
ions at the college. One young man from Manchester, with 
some Frenchmen, was conducted forth and executed for 
attempting to make his escape, — as I understood, — but 
perhaps only to make up the daily number of one hundred 
and fifty victims, on whom the tyrant exercised his vengeance 
just before his fall. 

The prisoners in Paris were suppHed with bread, fuel, 
mattress, and sheets ; all other articles of necessity or com- 
fort we found for ourselves. Those among us who had no 
means were supplied by those who had. By sending to 
market we lived at small cost, — my expenses from the 
depreciation of currency not amounting in our money to 
more than fifty cents a day, including the contribution 
alluded to. Paper money was plenty enough, but the unin- 
terrupted continuance of all the machinery of municipal 
government is matter of astonishment. While all the supe- 
rior posts in the administration were either in a state of 
continual change, or wholly suspended, the inferior officers, 
jailers and so forth, kept their places. They did not approve 
the state of things, but they dared not abandon their duties, 
especially in the prisons, so well did they and their employers 
know that complete barbarism would have taken their place, 
had they resigned their posts into Revolutionary hands. 

In the convent of English Nuns were the wives and 
daughters of several noblemen, and a number of other young, 
beautiful, and respectable ladies of good famihes. The only 
difference in the treatment they received and ours was that 
they could obtain permission to make visits in the city ; but 
this indulgence was of little use to them. Their relatives 
were already murdered, in foreign countries, or in other 
prisons. 

During our confinement in the college, the British and 



IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 49 

Spaniards were forced to abandon Toulon, which had been 
given up to them by the persecuted part of its inhabitants ; 
and the event was signalized by demonstrations of real or 
feigned joy among the prisoners, who were furnished about 
the same time with evidence of hostile feeling towards them 
on the part of the populace. To sustain the influence of the 
sanguinary party then in power, the bust of Marat, who had 
been assassinated some months before by Miss Charlotte 
Corday, was paraded through the streets, followed by a pro- 
cession of some thousand people. When it passed the 
college, the prisoners judged it advisable to appear at the 
windows, and there exhibit signs of commendation. These 
were approved by some, but others in the procession consid- 
ered our zeal officious ; and in the confusion there arose 
no little apprehension that we might be assailed and pro- 
miscuously murdered. 

I believe that most of those I left in the Madelonettes 
became victims ; but only a few young men, who attempted 
an escape by means of rope-ladders after I left the Scotch 
College, were executed or brought to trial. However, the 
length of my confinement and too close association with 
some of my fellow-prisoners broke down my health, and 
brought on me a complaint from which I suffered for many 
years after. 

Towards the middle of January, 1794, Messrs. Jackson and 
Francis of Philadelphia, and Mr. Joseph Russell of Boston, 
came over from England ; but one of them having taken 
charge of some letters from emigres to their friends, it was 
found that one of these letters contained counterfeit assignats, 
and the gentlemen were all escorted to Paris to be examined 
by the Committee of Public Safety. As Republicans, they 
had expected very different treatment. Jackson, who had 
been in the American army, was not easily put off his guard, 
but, assuming the uniform and address of an officer lately 
attached to General Washington's staff, obtained his audiences 
at discretion, and prevented the imprisonment of himself 
and his companions by an explanation of the incident in a 
style of energy and innocence. 

4 



50 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

About the same time, partly, I believe, from more correct 
views of our national feeling towards France, obtained 
through Mr. Jackson, and partly from returning confidence 
in our minister (at least in his official acts), the Committee 
of Public Safety took up my business, and in January, 1794, 
ordered my release without any explanation or apology, or 
any more ceremony than had been exhibited at the time 
of my arrest. By some accident the order was discovered 
by Mr. Ramsden ; and he, in a very friendly manner, took 
charge of it, and brought it to the prison lest there should 
be some miscarriage, and I should not have the benefit 
of it. 

The day after my release I joined Mr. Barlow, Major 
Jackson, and other Americans in a petition which they, with 
leave, presented to the National Convention, praying for the 
release of Thomas Paine as a citizen of the United States, 
he having been lately imprisoned as a British subject. Mr. 
Paine's " Rights of Man " had, with his former writings, 
induced the French to believe that he would be an acqui- 
sition in forming their government, and he became a mem- 
ber of the Assembly, though he was unable to deliver his 
sentiments in the language of the country. It was an 
axiom with him that all rnen were sufficiently wise to dis- 
cover their own interests ; and as every man had an in- 
terest in his own hberty, the French must be prepared 
to enjoy a free government. Therefore he supported the 
declaration of September, 1792, that France should abolish 
royalty and establish a repubhc. But being destitute of 
any revengeful motive in the case of King I.ouis, Paine 
had not joined in voting for his death, and thus excited 
the suspicions of his colleagues, who sent him to prison 
on the first opportunity. There, possibly to conciliate 
those who professed atheism, he prepared his pamphlet 
on the " Age of Reason ; " but he was miserable under 
the continual apprehension of being murdered, and bitterly 
accused the leaders in the Convention of plotting his death. 

The President of the Convention told us that the govern- 
ment considered Paine, who was born in Great Britain, sub- 




THOMAS PAINE. 



IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 5 1 

ject to the laws relating to countries with which France was 
at war, but that, appreciating our motives, our petition 
would be referred to the Committee of Public Safety. He 
then invited us to the honors of the Session, which meant 
seats within the bar. But not a few members hissed during 
the reading of parts of our memorial, in which Paine's 
attachment to republican principles was asserted. 

At the head of the committee to which our petition was 
referred was the noted Robespierre, a dissatisfied member 
of the bar of Artois, who had been a member of the first 
or Constituent Assembly. He was assisted by Carnot, 
Barrere, and others. 

It is hardly necessary to say that by this time everything 
like style or gayety of dress was abandoned, both by natives 
and foreigners. Pantaloons, short boots, round hats, and 
cropped hair were altogether fashionable among gentlemen ; 
but ladies of rank or fashion were entirely shut up, or, if tliey 
appeared in public, were so disguised as to be unknown. 

The halt of the Prussian army under the Duke of Bruns- 
wick, after his threatening proclamation had stirred up 
the fury of the French, may have been due to the critical 
situation of the king and queen, but I have never been 
able to understand why the British minister withheld from 
the insurgents in La Vendee and Brittany aid that he could 
well have despatched to them, after the destruction of the 
French fleet by Lord Howe. In my opinion such aid would 
have far better helped the cause of England and her allies 
against France than the subsequent war in the Peninsula. 
That Mr. Pitt should have doubted of success at this time 
and in this manner has always given me surprise, though 
I cannot accuse him of duplicity, as was done by the French 
Royahsts. 

As I considered that the partiality of my countrymen 
towards a republican form of government had led them 
to mistake the character of the French Revolution, I could 
not but see, in the declaration of neutrality made by General 
Washington, more magnanimity than in the scanty help af- 
forded by England to check the effusion of innocent blood- 



52 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

and prevent a generation of men and women from being 
delivered over to anarchy. 

It is probable that, but for the divided state of public 
feeling at that day in America on the subject of the French 
Revolution, the President would have declined to send a 
minister to France when the government of the Reign of 
Terror demanded the recall of Mr. Morris ; nor would our 
government have solicited another minister from France to 
replace Genet, the incendiary who had insulted General 
Washington and our whole nation. Our conduct on this 
occasion countenanced the regicides, and encouraged their 
successors to make war on the United States four years 
later, in 1798. 

When, after the recall of Mr. Morris, Mr. Monroe ar- 
rived in France, he found himself the only representative 
of any foreign power. The smallest republics in Europe 
evinced their displeasure ; the American confederacy alone 
courted the friendship of Genet's employers, who in the end 
plundered the people who thus had countenanced them, 

Mr. Monroe, on his arrival in Paris, finding that many 
of the miscellaneous duties that fell on Mr. Morris could 
be equally well performed by a subordinate, procured the 
appointment of a charge d'affaires. He arrived in time 
to witness the overthrow of Robespierre, — a man whose 
tyrannical acts were supported, if not often suggested, by 
some of his colleagues. These men suggested atrocities, 
and the members of the Legislative Assembly submitted 
to such acts through fear, until their own persons were 
threatened ; and then, seeing no other relief than through 
the overthrow of the Jacobin leaders was to be expected, 
they gathered courage from despair, and, making a virtue 
of necessity, they called to their aid a class of the population 
they had long oppressed, and a counter revolution was ef- 
fected, with little difficulty and almost without bloodshed. 

Soon after my release I returned to Havre, where I found 
Mr. Taney preparing to embark for America. He had been 
arrested by order of the government a few days before ; and 
although he had been speedily released, he dreaded worse. 



IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 53 

The American ship " Caroline," about this time, with specie, 
the proceeds of our last venture in tobacco, on board, was 
captured by H. M. Frigate " Thetis," Captain Lord Cochrane, 
and a suit for the recovery of our inoney was instituted, 
which made it desirable I should again visit England. My 
health had been much broken by my imprisonment, and I 
received at Havre the most kind care from Mrs, Taney, and 
her father, M. Govain. Madame Govain had been most 
anxious for my conversion to the Catholic faith, while faiths 
were still respected ; but now that her cure had fled, it was 
a consolation to find in me a Republican and a Christian. 
The churches in Havre being at this time closed, many 
conscientious persons wandered into paganism, and my 
own servant seriously inquired of me whether there was, or 
was not, a God. To which I ventured to reply that religion 
was a blessing, and ought to be a guide, and at all events it 
was safe to believe in it. 

At this time it was not possible for a person of noble 
descent, estate, or connections, to remain in France with 
safety, and the few who had so far escaped, were flying in 
all directions. I had the happiness to embark at Havre 
on board a neutral vessel, the beautiful and accomplished 
Countess de Fontange, whose husband had entered the 
Spanish army ; nor was she the only person to whom I 
rendered similar services, but these mostly took refuge in 
the United States. 

In July, 1794, I thought it best to repair to London and 
watch over our interests in the Court of Admiralty. I 
therefore embarked on board a small Swedish vessel I had 
freighted, for Hamburg, intending to proceed from thence 
to England. We ran the blockade successfully, after a 
dangerous and tedious passage, and I landed at Gluckstadt, 
a small town in Holstein, where I was at once suspected to 
be a Frenchman, but, as my papers were all in order, I was 
ordered to proceed the next day to Hamburg. 

Hamburg had been long respected by European belliger- 
ents as one of the Free Cities, but no respect was paid 
to it by the French, who not only entered it, but plundered 



54 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

it ; so that nowhere had the Allies more ready supporters 
than the Hamburghers. When the French overran Ger- 
many, this long-prosperous Free City was made to pay dearly 
for its wonted neutrality, in forced seizures and loans, until 
finally, by the anti-commercial system by which Bonaparte 
endeavored to cripple England, her merchants were shut 
out from the ocean, and whatever the Revolutionary armies 
had left became the spoil of the French Emperor's generals. 

At Hamburg I found Mr. Barlow and some other 
Americans, who no longer considered themselves comfort- 
able or safe in France, and I became personally acquainted 
with Mr. Parrish, the United States consul, and M. God- 
deffroy, my former correspondent. ■■■ At a dinner at his hos- 
pitable house, where there were many foreigners, I remarked 
that his accomplished daughters conversed with each stranger 
in his own tongue, with perfect ease and facility. 

I took my passage to England in a packet, in which I 
crossed the North Sea in four days. The weather was sufifi- 
ciently moderate to enable the crew to cast a net and to 
catch an abundant supply of fish and oysters. The oysters, 
however, were so much impregnated with a coppery taste 
as hardly to be eatable, vv^hich taste is common to all the 
oysters on the European coasts, so that they are at first very 
unpalatable to an American. 

I took lodgings in London, where I spent the winter 
(1794-95) ; but I was nearly all the time confined to the 
house, indebted to my landlady for her kind care, and for 
society to such Americans as found leisure and inclination 
for friendly offices. This is a form of charity which too 
many worthy people overlook, while they daily perform 
other acts of benevolence. 

While I was thus confined to my lodgings I was appointed, 
as I afterwards learned (for the commission was dated 
Dec. 18, 1794), consul of the United States for the port of 
Havre-Marat, as it was then called, instead of Havre de 

1 The house of Goddeffroy & Co. now carries on an immense 
business with islands in the Pacific, and is greatly interested in the 
affairs of Samoa. — E. W. L. 



IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 55 

Grace. I received some copies of the Laws addressed to 
me as consul, from the Department of State at Washington, 
three years after, and a duplicate of my commission was 
furnished me on my return to America ; but such were the 
uncertainties of the post-office service at that period that 
my commission never reached me, though I fulfilled the 
duties of consul at Havre, and the authorities accepted me 
as such. I subsequently inquired of Mr. Monroe whether 
such a document had come into his hands. He answered 
that no such paper had been received by him, and added, 
" But such was the favorable opinion that I formed of your 
character and conduct that I am satisfied that your appoint- 
ment would have been agreeable to me." 

While 1 was in London one of the chief actors was hissed 
off the stage at Drury Lane because he made his appearance 
with short hair, thus marking, as the audience supposed, 
his sympathy with the French and their Revolution. But 
the Prince of Wales (inclined to side with Mr. Fox in his 
opposition to the tax on hair powder) adopted the crop, and 
it became fashionable in England soon after. 

My business with the Admiralty Court being happily 
settled, I left England for France in company with Mr. John 
Field of Philadelphia, and Mr. Waldo of Boston, who were 
about going to Paris, France having become more settled 
after the unexpected fall of Robespierre. I joined them in 
a postchaise and four for Margate, April 5, 1795. 

That being the day on which the Princess Caroline of 
Brunswick was expected to arrive, the road was crowded, 
the simple ones supposing that the Prince of Wales would 
come with speed to greet his bride. We did not pass 
without observation, especially as a very well-dressed black 
servant of Mr. Waldo was mounted behind the carriage. In 
the midst of a sohtary wood we met a coach and six, con- 
taining no less a person than Mr. Pitt, returning, without 
attendance, from a visit to one of the Cinque Ports, of which 
he was warden. He was a tall, thin, serious-looking gentle- 
man in black. I was surprised to see the first minister of 
state thus travelling alone, and without a guard. 



56 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

In consequence of the fall of Robespierre, July 27, 1794, 
I began to consider the establishment of rational liberty still 
possible in France. Robespierre was a middle-aged man 
of good person, wore spectacles, and was attentive to dress. 
From some proofs of candor and disinterestedness, — from 
his absence on the loth of August, — and from the fact of 
his saving the lives of the seventy-two protesting Deputies, 
and restoring the belief in a future state, I am inclined to 
think that he had been pushed forward by a current which 
was irresistible.^ He was a man not endowed with much 
courage ; but if he could have put down his rivals, his govern- 
ment might have been at least as mild as that to which the 
French submitted their necks soon after. His former ac- 
complices, Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, and Tallien, 
became his accusers to save themselves, and few adhered 
to him when attacked. 

We landed at Dunkirk, a place famous in history, where 
I instantly discovered the happy change produced by the 
downfall of the late government. The churches were now 
open for worship, and the richer classes seemed to vie with 
the humbler in showing their devotion. All countenances 
were brightened. Each class seemed disposed to acts of 
civility and kindness. 

Mr, Monroe, who had recently arrived in Paris, to replace 
Mr. Morris as minister of the United States, had been well 
received by the more just and temperate Committee of 
the Convention. The American character became every- 
where treated witli respect. 

At Amiens I took leave of Messrs. Field and Waldo, who 
were going direct to the capital, while I hastened across 
country to Havre. The road from Calais to Paris was orna- 
mented with two rows of forest trees, about thirty feet from 
tree to tree ; but, for the safety of travellers, no forest or 
grove of trees is suffered to stand within twenty or thirty 
yards of the main road. 

In the cultivation of the land and in their manners, I saw 
little difference between the people of Picardy and those of 
i See Book IV., Chapter IV, 




JAMES MONROE. 



IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. 57 

Normandy ; and the peasantry throughout France, in those 
parts where they cultivate the grape, or raise grain, or follow 
grazing, are, as I saw them, sober, plain, and pious. I had 
indeed many opportunities of mixing with them, especially 
in those evening dances of the villagers, in which I often 
joined with heartfelt pleasure. I saw much of them, too, 
while engaged in their various occupations. 

Their landlords were never so obnoxious to them as the 
unequal tax on salt, and the forced labor required of them 
on the roads. Much of the best soil was held by the regular 
clergy ; but as these fathers spent their lives among the vil- 
lagers, and employed the industrious, besides ministering to 
the wants of the afflicted, it may be doubted whether the 
sale and division of their domains will add to the enjoyment, 
real happiness, or contentment of the peasantry, although 
many peasants of course will become more independent in 
their persons and property than formerly. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LIFE IN PARIS UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 

TT^^HILST I was absent in England during the greater 
^ * part of the year 1794, the affairs of Mr. Taney had 
been far from prospering. The fall of the markets, the seizure 
of some of his shipments, and, above all, the delay of the 
Government in paying for the tobacco purchased from him 
proved his ruin. 

To obtain some settlement from those in power after the 
fall of Robespierre, I again went to Paris before the end of 
April, 1 795 ; and as the strict English blockade had de- 
stroyed the trade of Havre, I never returned to it again. 

Before I left London I had been recommended to several 
French emigrants as a person to whom they might confide 
letters ; amongst others, M. Cazales, the late eloquent and 
intrepid opponent of the Revolutionary measures of the Con- 
stituent Assembly. He called on me, and, besides his own 
letters of a private nature, tendered me a polite introduc- 
tion, which I accepted, to his friend M. de Nanteuil of the 
Place Victoire, formerly one of the farmers of the diligences. 
This proved to be one of the most fortunate circumstances 
of my life ; for to this gentleman and his amiable family was 
I indebted for the greatest pleasures of the ensuing four 
years, — being the happiest portion of my life during my 
absence from America. 

At the same time that Mr. Monroe, our new ambassador, 
reached Paris, came three friends of mine from Baltimore, — 
Captain Barney. Mr. J. H. Purviance, and Mr. Henry Wil- 
son ; besides Mr. Skipwith, Mr. Monroe's secretary, and a 
number of Americans from other places. By the aid of 
Mr. Skipwith and my friend Major Mountfiorence, also 



LIFE IN PARIS UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 59 

attached to the embassy, I succeeded in obtaining an 
acknowledgment of the claims with which I was intrusted, 
including my own, and some payments were made in depre- 
ciated money ; but the major part remained unpaid until, 
by the cession of Louisiana in 1803, the American Govern- 
ment assumed most of the debts. 

By Mr. and Mrs. Monroe I was received and treated in a 
most friendly manner. The minister, contemplating a resi- 
dence of some time in Paris, and tempted by the low price 
of property, purchased a very handsome villa within the walls 
of the city, to the west ; where he and his lady, then young, 
beautiful, and affable, entertained at sumptuous dinners nu- 
merous parties of Frenchmen and Americans, besides giving 
a magnificent fete, long remembered, on the Fourth of July, 
1795, soon after the installation of the new embassy. The 
only child of Mr. and Mrs. Monroe, a young daughter, was 
sent to Madame Campan's boarding-school at St. Germain. 

Nothing could have given me so much pleasure as the 
great change I found in Paris after my return to it in April, 
1795. The excluded members of the Convention — nearly 
seventy in number, and those the best — had resumed their 
seats. The Jacobin Club was suppressed. The princess 
royal had been sent from the prison where she had lived, 
bereaved of her parents, to the palace of her uncle at 
Vienna ; the guillotine was put down, and there was an end 
to the infamous Revolutionary Tribunal. 

At Mr. Monroe's I met, besides Thomas Paine, — whom 
Mr. Monroe charitably lodged and boarded for some time 
after obtaining his release from prison, — my countrymen, 
Messrs. Barlow, Eustis, Putnam, Barney, Codman, Waldo, 
Sands, and Higginson ; besides Colonel Humphries, our 
minister, on his way to Spain ; Kosciusko, the Pole, who 
served in our War of Independence, and many others. I 
met also most of the officials or founders of the new gov- 
ernment, including the Abb6 Gregoire,^ who retained his 
fidelity to the Catholic faith, and deserved the bishopric he 
got, while Gobel, the Diocesan of Paris, basely abandoned 
1 See Book V., Chapter II. 



6o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

the Church. I met, too, M, Mercier, author of a facetious 
but just picture of Paris ; and Cambac^res, then occupied 
in a compilation of Laws which was afterwards designated 
the Code Napoleon. With Napoleon he was subsequently 
associated as one of the three Consuls. There were also 
Lanthenas, Jean de Brie, and Boissy d'Anglas, convention- 
alists, men who sincerely labored to estabhsh a republican 
form of government, — of the practicabihty of which neither 
they nor Mr. Monroe seemed to entertain any doubt. I 
also saw there the Count de S^gur, M. Volney the traveller, 
and many others. But Sieyes, the wily Talleyrand, and others 
of that stamp, affected to shun places of conviviality and 
the society of foreigners. 

It will be allowed that in such company I had great op- 
portunities for improvement, and also that it may have been 
hard for a young man to withstand contamination from the 
erroneous religious and political opinions that many of these 
gentlemen entertained. 

The man who afterwards became First Consul was not 
commonly spoken of till made chief of the Army of Italy. 
He was the offspring of a species of gentry in Corsica, whom 
it was the policy of France to concihate at the time he was 
educated at the Military School at Brienne. He was a dema- 
gogue from infancy, and first signalized himself at Toulon 
in 1793. Under Barras he also put down the Sections, 13th 
Vendemiaire (Oct. 4, 1794). 

The Jacobins, alarmed, after the fall of Robespierre, by 
the condemnation of Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecu- 
tor of the Revolutionary Tribunal, attempted to regain their 
authority in the May following, and for a while succeeded, 
after killing in an kmeute the member Feraud ; but their 
adherents were repulsed, the assassin of Feraud was arrested, 
and at once condemned to death. When carried, however, 
to the Place de Greve, where executions at that time took 
place, he was rescued from a few cowardly gendarmes by 
a small party of the populace, and hidden in the Faubourg 
St. Antoine. As I had never witnessed an execution by the 
guillotine, I took this opportunity to go to the Place de Greve 




CHARLES MAURICE TALLEYRAND. 



LIFE IN PARIS UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 6 1 

with my friend Pnrviance, and was present at tlie rescue, 
which commenced by a few boys crying, Grace! Grace! 
The Convention, however, ordered the Faubourg St. Antoine 
to be besieged, and, after two or three days of commotion, 
the city was restored to quiet by the surrender and execution 
of the murderer. 

While Thomas Paine was lodged in our ambassador's 
house, Mr, Monroe informed me that he was writing a most 
abusive letter to General Washington, and asked me to see 
him and persuade him to have it suppressed, as he himself had 
in vain endeavored to do. This I did, but all in vain ; for 
Paine thought himself slighted by our Government, which 
had not demanded his release without waiting for his solici- 
tation. He was, hke many other geniuses advanced in life, 
both vain and obstinate to an extreme degree. 

When Mr. Monroe was recalled in 1796, the Americans 
in Paris, who had received many services and civiUties from 
him, and who had no knowledge of the objectionable com- 
munications that had passed between himself, his own and 
the French Governments, united in addressing him a compli- 
mentary letter, which he afifixed to his defense on his return 
to America, and which was the innocent cause of some little 
coolness on the part of friends at home to some of the sign- 
ers, including myself. Although I always differed with Mr. 
Monroe's general pohtics, I do not reproach myself with 
signing this testimony to his private worth and public 
services. 

On my former visits to Paris I had always lodged at 
public hotels or inns, where I met other Americans or 
strangers ; but being desirous of forming French acquaint- 
ances to the exclusion in some measure of other society, 
I took the hberty to ask my friend M. de Nanteuil, after 
I had been introduced to his lady and his family, which 
consisted of two amiable young daughters and a young son, 
if I could hve with them. But he very cordially informed 
me that the customs of the country would not allow parents 
who had unmarried daughters in the house to admit gentle- 
men on the footing I proposed, but that I might consider 



62 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

his house like a home, so far as to call and take meals with 
them whenever I found it convenient. I was even urged 
to bring with me American friends and others at discretion. 
I was also introduced into the family of M. de Nanteuil's 
younger brother, who had an elegant little villa at Rhony, the 
same that had once been the residence of the Due de Sully. 
There I was present at many pleasant parties, and passed 
many happy days. I became acquainted and was often in 
company with Madame Tallien, who was certainly, though 
aged about thirty,^ and the wife of a second husband, one of 
the most elegant and accomphshed women of the age, as 
she was that one of all her sex who most contributed to 
serve humanity by her influence over the monsters who had 
usurped the government of her country. I also knew Ma- 
dame Recamier, the young and amiable wife of the banker 
of that name, who was universally considered the beauty of 
Paris for several years. She was not so tall as Madame 
TaUien and more portly ; both had black eyes and hair. 

In the circle of young ladies, nearly all of whom were 
schoolfellows, having been together at the establishment of 
Madame Campan, I met Mademoiselle Oulot, who became 
the wife of General Moreau, Mademoiselle Agla^ Angui6, 
who in 1807 became the Princesse de la Moskowa, wife of 
Marshal Ney, and Mademoiselle Hortense de Beauharnais, 
who was the step-daughter of Bonaparte, and became Queen 
of Holland. They were all rivals in accomplishments then, 
and all have since experienced the most painful reverses. 
Among all the young ladies whom I knew in France, Made- 
moiselle Anguie, whose fate was the most deplorable, united 
the greatest charms of person and mind, and pleased me most. 
This young lady's father had suffered his share of Revolution- 
ary malice. Her mother had died by violence ; her aunt, 
Madame Campan, had been driven from the chamber of the 
queen to keep a boarding-school ; while her uncle, M. Genet, 
had rendered himself obnoxious to the American people, 
and was proscribed at home. Yet these afflictions, though 

^ Mr. Griffith is mistaken; she could not have been more than 
twenty-four, having been born in 1773. 



LIFE IN PARIS UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 63 

far inferior to what she must have suffered in later life from 
the execution of her husband, Marshal Ney, gave her a sort 
of pensive modesty, which, at her age and with her great 
beauty, made her exceedingly attractive. 

When Bonaparte assumed the extraordinary task of mak- 
ing matches between his generals and ladies who possessed 
a certain fortune, he presented Mademoiselle Anguie to Ney, 
and is said to have declared that he had selected " the 
fairest of the fair for the bravest of the brave." 

I was long enough privileged to be intimate in French 
society to assert, contrary to the statements of many travel- 
lers, that the chances of happiness in marrying among the 
French are as great, or nearly so, as they are anywhere. This 
will not appear so extraordinary when it is considered that 
young ladies in France always received their education in 
some convent, and were afterwards much restricted in their 
intercourse with the other sex. They come into society with- 
out any former impressions or partialities, and, when their 
parents form suitable connections for them, will generally 
attach themselves to their husbands and their domestic 
duties, unless the husbands become libertines, or the fasci- 
nations of fashionable or court life overcome their religious 
principles. 

Although in other countries young ladies are permitted 
a more general intercourse, how seldom does it happen that 
they obtain in marriage the man they most admire ! They 
are not at liberty to solicit for themselves ; but in France 
their parents will often seek for them the object of their 
preference. 

I lived in furnished apartments in the Rue Richelieu at 
one time and in the Rue St. Roch, afterwards with Mr. J. 
H. Purviance, private secretary to Mr. Monroe ; but I was 
.generally alone. I kept a cabriolet, or gig, and a servant, 
a native of Cologne, who was my hair-dresser, valet de 
chambre, and footman, and who prepared my breakfast. If 
I was not engaged abroad, I dined at a restaurateur's ; that 
is, one of those splendid cook-shops with which the capital 
of France abounds. I partook of all public amusements, 



64 "^^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

and was frequently in the streets till daylight, without ever 
receiving the slightest injury or insult from individuals. 

One of ray country excursions was to Daumartin, a villa 
which had been purchased by my friend, Mr. Richard 
Codman, of Boston. The castle, erected probably a thou- 
sand years before, presented only piles of stone and mortar, 
which seemed to adhere as one mass and to be capable of 
resisting all attacks another thousand years. 

To counteract the excitement in France against the United 
States in 1797, I wrote an answer to a remark in the corre- 
spondence of the ambassador Fauchet, relative to the influ- 
ence of British trade in America. The title of my pamphlet 
was, "LTnd^pendence absolue des Etats Unis de TAraerique 
prouv^e par I'Etat actuel de leur Commerce," etc. Its style 
was corrected by a French friend, M. Billocq. I also pub- 
lished articles in the French newspapers for a similar 
purpose. 

The Revolutionary armies under Dumouriez, Pichegru, 
Jourdan, Hoche, and Moreau, aided by the sympathy of 
foreign populations and the want of a common feeling among 
the allied sovereigns, had enabled the French Government 
to procure peace with Spain, Prussia, Switzerland, and Hol- 
land. Soon after the fall of Robespierre, Bonaparte carried 
his victorious arms through Italy, and even to the neighbor- 
hood of Vienna. The British Government was left almost 
alone, and authorized Lord Malmesbury to enter into nego- 
tiations at Lisle ; but the Directors and the leading men in 
the Assembly became uneasy at the prospect of a general 
peace. They overthrew their opponents on the i8th Fructi- 
dor (Sept. 4, 1797) by calling in the military under Au- 
gereau, and broke off the negotiations, sending Bonaparte 
to Egypt to conquer other colonies in place of those they 
had lost in America ; and considering themselves destitute 
of any further interest in the neutrality of the United States, 
they began at once to plunder the Americans, and their gov- 
ernment used the most insulting language to our own. 

Having very weak eyes from infancy, I now attempted the 
use of spectacles before I was twenty-four, and to that, and 



LIFE IN PARIS UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 65 

perhaps to the use of Rapparee snuff (begun then also), I 
may impute the preservation of my sight, using my spectacles 
only for reading ; but a miniature painter whom I employed 
at this time to take a likeness of me for my father, dis- 
covered that my left eye was defective, being in part per- 
manently covered by an eclipse. 

Mr, Monroe was recalled in the fall of 1796, and 
General Pinckney was sent out to obtain some restoration 
of harmony. This venerable American officer and patriot 
was indignantly rejected by those self-created despots (the 
members of the Directory), and it became necessary to sat- 
isfy our people, who could not credit the horrid acts of 
pretended republicans. Another embassy was therefore 
sent : Gerry, Marshall, General Ellsworth, and Messrs. Davis 
and Murray. While these ambassadors of peace were on 
their way, American property was subject to many risks, and 
our persons were in danger. • Mr. Skipwith, our consul, was 
obnoxious at Havre, and he was obliged to retire ; so also 
in Paris was Major Mountflorence, his late assistant. 

My own health requiring change and care, I spent some 
time in 1798 at Passy, and perhaps avoided molestation by 
doing so. As if the Directory feared that personal outrages 
on Americans should not be understood, they passed a 
decree enjoining foreigners (meaning particularly Ameri- 
cans) to leave the city and the country, within a very short 
period, unless they obtained a card of hospitality ; that is, 
a permit to prolong their stay from week to week. In con- 
sequence of this decree, Paris was almost deserted by Ameri- 
cans, but my commercial concerns would not admit of my 
departure, and I was arrested several times, because I had not 
taken care to renew week by week my card of hospitality. 

As if enough had not been done to open the eyes of 
Americans, the Directory sent an army into the Swiss Can- 
tons, and compelled those brave and ancient republican 
aUies to put themselves under French protection. 

I endeavored to become attached to the Dutch embassy, 
but Mr. Murray had engaged Mr. I. Henry as his secretary ; 
however, after all official characters had left Paris, I became 

5 



66 THE FRF.XCIl REVOLUTWX. 

the medium through which he transmitted American otticial 
despatches to the French minister for foreign affairs. 

When I pubHshed my Defence of the Independence ot 
the United States (of which I have already spoken) I sent 
copies to MM. Rccderer, Anguit^, Duprtf, and others ; also 
to M. Talleyrand, the minister, who in a note of thanks 
replied that, if 1 had not proved what I proposed, I had 
abundantly shown that it was the interest of tlie United 
States to cultivate a good understanding with the French 
nation. 

The corrupt conduct of this artful man, while minister for 
foreign affairs, and the energy with which our government 
exposed his intrigues, together with reverses to the French 
arms in Italy, and the destruction of the French tieet on the 
coast of Egypt, hret compelled the Directory to renew 
amicable negotiations with the United States, which they 
would gladly ha\-e extended to Great Britain. Then came 
their iinal overthrow in 1799 by the military party. 

I took an opportunity once to ask M. I^a Forest, who 
had been French consul at Philadelphia, and was then chief 
clerk in the Foreign Department, how he could reconcile it 
to his conscience to ser\-e such wicked rulers. To which he 
pleaded poverty as his excuse, but also declared that greater 
evils might have taken place but for the influence of ^[. 
Talleyrand. 

While the relations of the French Goveniment with 
America continued unsatisfactory, nothing profitable could 
be done by an American in France. Messrs. Pinckney 
and Gerry had gone home, and the hostility of the French 
GoverniYient to all Americans who remained in Paris was 
apparent in many ways. I therefore determined to return 
hon\e, and, when thing-s should impro\^, attempt to obtain 
a more profitable situation than that of consul at Havre. 
That a ch.ange would take place before long I did not doubt. 
The people had long since become tired of strife and of the 
manv shifting changes in their Government : and some Rev- 
olutionary leader had to be sought on whom pow^r and 
authority should devolve sufficient to defend the countr}^ 




CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY. 



LIFE IN PARIS UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 6y 

externally and maintain peace in the interior. For this they 
chose a person who, being a foreigner, entertained no par- 
tiality for any district of the country, nor any class of people, 
and yet was committed to the Revolution. To Napoleon 
Bonaparte the nation submitted, with few exceptions, as 
cordially as if he had been born their king, for the French, 
like other people, will go from one extreme to another, and, 
after contending with great zeal for some particular object 
until they are exhausted, will become so relaxed and indif- 
ferent as to appear better contented without it. 

Before I left Paris in July, 1 799, it was known that the 
government of France had been offered to Moreau, Hoche, 
and some other military commanders. People were then 
ignorant that Bonaparte was on his way from Egypt, and there 
was a general feeling that the king would be restored, and 
universal peace take place immediately. 

In the course of my exertions to provide for myself in 
the future in case I should never receive the money that was 
due me from the French Government, I purchased for a 
large sum in assignats a hotel in the Rue de Richelieu. 
Upon the fall of this paper money I sold the same property 
for payments in specie, of course at an enormously reduced 
price, but one nevertheless that would have left me a con- 
siderable profit. Before the payments were all due, however, 
the new paper money called mandats was created, which, 
like assignats, fell in value as soon as it appeared, but, having 
been made legal tender, my purchaser took advantage of it, 
and thus my hopes of a successful speculation in real estate 
cost me dear. 

As no passage direct for America could be obtained in 
France in 1799, ^^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^ desirous to see Bordeaux, I 
determined to proceed home by Spain. I procured a pass- 
port from Mr. Skipwith, indorsed by the minister for foreign 
affairs, to be countersigned by the resident Spanish minister 
and head of the Department, when I should have deposited 
my card of hospitality. 

Fully impressed with the idea that I should soon be in 
France again, I did not feel that regret I otherwise should 



68 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

have done at parting with my inestimable friends. I even 
entertained liopes of seeing again General Decoudray, who, a 
bachelor, and at the age of eighty, entertained in the most 
agreeable manner large parties of gentlemen, of whom I was 
one. He inhabited an ancient castle of his family at Brie. 
He was sincerely beloved by his tenantry, and even in the 
days of party violence the castle gate served only as a com- 
mon door, the moat was dry, and the battlements without a 
guard. From a pleasure house in the park we could see 
a distant castle, once the residence of La Belle Gabrielle. 
Some anecdotes relating to that amour of the Great Henry 
were told us as family traditions, and' the general had in his 
town house in the Place Royale two chairs that had served the 
happy couple, as he said. 

I took charge of some letters from Madame de Lafayette 
to General Washington, and from M. Leroy to Mr. Adams and 
Colonel Hamilton. At the moment I was stepping into the 
diligence, that gentleman told me in a whisper that our 
friends in America might be certain of a speedy revolution 
in the government of France. 

My servant, Louis Monnard, being a native of Cologne, 
and liable to the conscription, was very desirous to leave 
France, but could only do so by obtaining the security of 
some friends for his return. 

We passed through a fine arable country on the banks of 
the Loire, to Orleans ; thence by Blois to Tours, and so on 
to Bordeaux ; there I hired a light carriage, and crossed the 
sands to Bayonne. The Landes, as they are called, present 
a surface almost bare, and the people appear to live on the 
produce of their pine timber, and on flocks of sheep, which 
the shepherds watch and drive mounted on stilts, while they 
spin tow or flax by hand. I lived upon the road on the 
thighs of geese, smoked like bacon. However, as I ap- 
proached Bayonne, the country improved. 

At Bayonne I hired mules, and a guide to conduct me 
over some small spurs of the Pyrenees into Spain. The 
guide proved to be a girl of twenty-two, daughter of the 
man who owned the mules. It seems that the commandants 



LIFE IN PARIS UNDER THE DIRECTORY. 69 

of the French and Spanish guards on the frontier treated the 
Biscayan women with much confidence ; and although I was 
not permitted to see my baggage, I do not believe that any- 
thing was even opened. 

When I reached San Sebastien, having happily got out of 
France, I found in the harbor several American ships armed, 
manned, and furnished with letters of marque against the 
French. 

The first vessel sailing for America was a small schooner 
bound to New York, and its commander, Captain Palmer, tak- 
ing me as a passenger, we sailed early in August, 1799. We 
made two or three narrow escapes from vessels which we 
supposed to be British cruisers. At one time there were two 
which we did not discover till quite near us. At another 
time a frigate by press of sail got within gunshot of us after 
a day's chase ; but as we were in the act of coming to, she 
carried away her fore-topmast, which emboldened us to 
cheer and fill our sails again. 

We finally lost sight of her, to the great joy of our captain, 
for his vessel and his cargo of French goods actually belonged 
to French merchants in New York ; and if he did not lose all, 
he would at least have been sent to England and detained 
at great expense. 

On September 20 we made the Highlands, but too late in 
the day to pass Sandy Hook, and, not to be obliged to tack 
at a critical season between Long Island and the Jersey 
Shore, Captain Palmer stood out to sea till the next day, when 
we reached New York. 

We heard from the health officer, who made no difficulty 
in letting us go up to the city, that yellow fever, that fatal 
disease which several times during my absence had visited 
my country, was now raging in New York so terribly that 
almost all the inhabitants had quitted the city. 



BOOK II. 

FRANCE BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. 

I. Imprisonments and Escapes of Latude. 
II. A Peasant's View of the Revolution. 

III. Paris in 1787. 

IV. Court Life at Versailles on the Eve of the Revolution. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON BOOK II. 

T^HE French Revolution of 1789 was not primarily a 
■^ revolt of the peasantry. All over France, indeed, the 
salt tax, or gabelle, and the corvee (or forced labor on the 
roads) were held to be sore grievances by the rural popula- 
tion ; but in Northern, Western, and Southern France the 
peasants were unfavorable to the Revolution, and it required 
a great deal of Revolutionary "mission work" to stir them 
up against their clergy and their nobles. It was not so in 
Central France, or in Lorraine, — a province that had not 
long been annexed to the French crown. Lorraine had 
been burdened by all sorts of feudal exactions imposed 
upon the country by its semi-German rulers, and even after 
its annexation to France in 1766, some of its nobles re- 
tained what was called office et seigfieurie, which gave 
them jurisdiction, and even the power of life and death, in 
certain townships and villages. 

The Revolution in its earlier stages, before the roughs 
of Paris learned their power and took the upper hand 
stimulated by a large foreign anarchic element, was the 
offspring of a sense of oppression that pervaded the intelli- 
gent classes. The nobility, especially the cadets of noble 
houses, dreaded personal oppression by the crown, — above 




HENRI MASERU DE LATUDE. 



INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON BOOK II. yi 

all, its lettres de cachet., distributed with a strange recklessness 
in all directions ; the professional class felt bitterly its exclu- 
sion from all careers of honor. No man could rise in life 
without his quarterings ; he might gain wealth, but place, 
power, and social consideration were denied him. In the 
army and navy the officers were all nobles, and those who 
could not exhibit a certain length of pedigree without a flaw 
were called qfficlers bleus and socially ostracized by their 
comrades. A desire for " liberty " was in the air. It 
pervaded all classes, it was stimulated by the fi7i du Steele 
literature of that day, and, above all, by sympathy with 
American ideas brought back to France by young French 
officers who had served under Washington in our War of 
Independence. 

The queen and her court party shook off the fetters of 
court etiquette for the enjoyment of liberty at the Trianon. 
Liberty of opinion, liberty of action, freedom from the 
bonds which shackled every free movement in every man's 
daily life, was the aspiration of many millions of hearts in 
France for ten years before the cry arose for reform in the 
finances, and for the assembling of the States-General. The 
iron had entered into every man's soul who belonged to 
the cultivated classes ; but the movement did not affect the 
peasantry until the desire for plunder took possession of 
them, and in Central France they burned the chateaux of 
their lords. 

What the terrors of the Bastille were we may learn from 
the narrative of Latude ; what the Revolution effected for the 
peasantry has been told by MM. Erckmann and Chatrian, 
who wrote down their narrations from the lips of ancient 
actors in these stories ; ^ and how Paris and Versailles on 
the verge of the Revolution looked to the gay, the young, 
and the careless, we may read in the narrative of two young 

1 There is no better picture of the Revolution and peasant life 
before the Revolution than may be found in George Sand's charming 
story of Nanon ; of which the " Christian Union " said, when a transla- 
tion of it appeared in 1886, published by Messrs. Roberts^ that "it 
was like the Pastoral Symphony in prose." — E. W. L. 



72 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

men of the middle class who came up to the capital on a 
frolic on the eve of the outburst of the great volcano. 

I have added a paper, also translated from the " Supple- 
ment Litteraire du Figaro," in which a modern reporter 
feigns to give us his impressions of Paris and court life at 
the same date. 

IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LATUDE.^ 

Henri Masers de Latude was born March 23, 1725, near 
Montagnac in Languedoc, in a castle belonging to his father, 
the Marquis de Latude, Knight of the order of St. Louis, 
Lieutenant- Colonel of the dragoons of Orleans, and at the 
time of his death (which toak place during his son's im- 
prisonment) the king's Heutenant at Sedan. 

Henri de Latude, a younger son, and by a second marriage, 
was well educated with a view to his becoming an officer 
and a courtier ; but from some slight hints in his story, we 
judge that he made more enemies than friends at Montagnac 
in his early years. 

A taste he had for mathematics led his father to get him 
an appointment as a supernumerary officer in the Engineers, 
under an old friend of the family, then serving at Bergen-op- 
Zoom ; but the peace of 1748 cut short his military career, 
and he repaired to Paris to push his way in life, and to 
improve his education. 

At that time Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de 
Pompadour, had reigned about three years over Louis XV., 
over France, and almost over Europe. She had resented 
Frederick the Great's refusal to receive her compliments 
through M. de Voltaire, by a declaration of war, and had 
forced the Empress Maria Theresa, staid wife and good 
mother, to address her as "my cousin." Her reign lasted 
in France for nineteen years. Latude, with all his wrongs, 
has painted her in no darker colors than history. The 
woman was possibly no worse than her generation, but on 
her was visited the nation's sense of oppressions, evils, and 

1 By Mrs. E. W. Latimer. Published in " Littell's Living Age," 
Feb, 17, 1883. 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 73 

abuses ; and this exasperation, before the century was out, 
was to culminate in the Revolution. 

The difficulty of approaching this lady, who was the 
fountain of all favor, both in camp and court, seems to have 
inspired more than one young simpleton with projects as 
dishonorable, ill advised, and ill laid as one conceived and 
carried out by Latude. He addressed a package to Madame 
de Pompadour into which he put a powder perfectly harm- 
less. Then he hastened to Versailles, and requested an 
audience. Having procured it, he informed her that in 
the garden of the Tuileries he had overheard a project 
formed by two men to poison her; that he had followed 
them to the general post-office, where they had deposited 
a letter ; this letter he beheved to be for her, and to contain 
a subtle poison. 

Madame de Pompadour expressed the utmost gratitude 
for his zeal, and offered him upon the spot a purse of gold, 
which he declined, saying he only aspired to her patronage 
and protection. Madame de Pompadour, however, was a 
shrewd woman. She made him write down his address, 
which he did, without reflecting that on the envelope of his 
package he had not disguised his handwriting. He there- 
fore returned to his own lodging exulting in the success of 
his ruse, and dreaming of future advancement in the court 
and army. 

Madame de Pompadour at once obtained her letter from 
the post-office, and tried the effect of the powder it con- 
tained on several animals. As these were none the worse 
for taking it, she compared the handwriting on the cover 
with Latude's. He was detected at once, and forthwith 
was waited upon by an agent of police, who hurried him 
into a voiture de place, and set him down about eight o'clock 
in the evening of April 27, 1749, in the courtyard of the 
Bastille. He was taken into the Chamber of Council, and 
there found the prison authorities awaiting his arrival. Here 
they stripped him and took from him all his money, papers, 
and valuables. His clothes were retained for further search, 
and he received in exchange some miserable rags, which, as 



74 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

he phrases it, " had been watered by the tears of other 
unfortunate prisoners." This ceremony was at the Bastille 
called faire V entree d'un prisonnier. They then made him 
write his name, and the date of his arrival, in the prison 
register, after which they conducted him to a room in one 
of the towers, into which they locked him. 

Berryer, the lieutenant (or, as we should say, the min- 
ister) of police, was sent next morning to interrogate him. 
When Latude had told him exactly what he had done and 
the motives that prompted him, Berryer replied that he saw 
nothing in his action but a piece of youthful folly. He 
promised to intercede with the Marquise de Pompadour, 
and did so ; but the incensed favorite could not be brought 
to consider the offence " a young man's indiscretion," and 
emphasized her intention to keep him in strict and solitary 
confinement. M. Berryer, however, ordered that he should 
have every indulgence, and even the society of an English 
spy, a Jew named Joseph Abuzaglo, betrayed by the open- 
ing of his letters in the post-ofiQce. But these companions 
in misfortune only increased each other's despair. 

Abuzaglo had a wife and children, ignorant of his fate, 
with whom he was denied any communication whatever. 
He had, however, a supposed patron in the Prince de Conti, 
who he expected would exert himself in his behalf ; and he 
and Latude made mutual promises that whoever was first 
released should spare no pains to procure the liberation of 
the other. These vows must have been overheard by their 
jailers. One morning, about four months after Latude's 
arrest, three turnkeys entered their chamber, one of whom 
informed Latude that the order for his liberation from the 
Bastille had come. He took an affecting leave of Abuzaglo, 
promising to remember their agreement ; but no sooner was 
he outside the double door of his late dungeon than he was 
informed that they were going to remove him to Vincennes. 

Abuzaglo a short time after regained his liberty ; but, be- 
lieving Latude to be already free, and outraged by his total 
inattention to his promises, he took no steps in his behalf. 

Latude, in his new prison, fell dangerously ill. Kind 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LATUDE. 75 

M. Berryer still watched over him. He assigned him the 
most comfortable apartment in the castle of Vincennes, with 
a window that commanded a superb view of the surrounding 
country. It was now that the ardent, scheming spirit of 
Latude began first to conceive the idea of an escape. A 
poor old priest had been confined in the castle many years, 
on a charge of Jansenism. He was permitted to teach the 
children of one of the turnkeys, and to receive frequent 
visits from an old friend, the Abb6 de St. Sauveur. For two 
hours every day Latude was allowed to take exercise in 
the garden of the castle, always attended by two turnkeys. 
Sometimes the elder turnkey waited in the garden while the 
younger went upstairs to unlock the prisoner's door. Latude 
began by making a practice of running downstairs in advance 
of his attendant, who always found him conversing with his 
fellow-turnkey within the garden door. 

One evening the bolts were hardly withdrawn when Latude 
rushed downstairs, closed the outside door, and fastened it 
upon the younger man. How he settled with the elder he 
does not tell. After that he had to pass four sentinels. The 
first was at a gate which led out of the garden, which was 
always closed. He hurried towards it, calling out eagerly, 
'•' Where is the Abbe St. Sauveur ? The old priest has been 
waiting for him two hours in the garden ! " Thus speaking, 
he passed the sentinel. At the end of a covered passage he 
found another gate, and asked the sentry who guarded it 
where the Abbe St. Sauveur was. He replied he had not 
seen him, and Latude hurried on. The same ruse was suc- 
cessful at the other two posts. Latude was free, after twelve 
long months of captivity, — four in the Bastille and eight at 
Vincennes. 

He hurried to Paris across country, and shut himself up 
in furnished lodgings. Will it be believed that the man who 
had planned and executed so audacious an escape could think 
of no better mode of retaining his liberty than to draw up a 
memorial to the king, " speaking of Madame de Pompadour 
with respect," and expressing regret for his past conduct? 
He ended by giving his address in Paris ; and then, having 



76 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



intrusted this document to one of the physicians of the 
court, he waited impatiently for an answer. 

Throughout the narrative we are struck by the extreme 
ignorance or indifference of this j'oung man of quahty re- 
specting the outside world. To him France, or rather Paris 
and Versailles, seem to have contained the whole human 
family, — or at least all that portion of it with which alone 
it was possible for a man of his position to hold civilized 
intercourse. 

In a few days his retreat was visited by another agent of 
police, who reconducted him to the Bastille. In spite of the 
good offices of M. Berryer, in spite of the promise made 
him on his arrest that he should be set at liberty if he would 
reveal the exact manner of his escape, he now changed his 
former comforts for a dungeon. This place was lighted by 
a loophole which admitted some faint rays of light, and 
M. Berryer ordered him to be supplied with books and 
writing materials. This indulgence proved his ruin. Hot- 
headed and imprudent, he could not refrain from writing on 
the margin of one of the volumes furnished him a coarse 
squib upon his persecutress, such as few women of her con- 
dition could have been expected to forgive : — 

" Unblessed with talents, unadorned with charms, 
Nor fresh nor fair, a wanton can allure 
In France the highest lover to her arms. 
As proof of this, behold the Pompadour ! " i 

Latude was not aware that every book was carefully exam- 
ined after it had been in the hands of a prisoner. His 
wretched verses were no sooner found than they were 
pointed out to the governor, who forthwith carried them 
in person to Madame de Pompadour. 

" Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." 
In her first paroxysm of rage she sent for M. Berryer. 

1 " Sans esprit, et sans agrements, 
Sans etre ni belle ni neuve, 
En France on peut avoir le premier des amants ; 
La Pompadour en est la preuve." 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 77 

" See ! " she cried, stammering in her excitement ; " learn to 
know yonr protege, and dare again to solicit my clemency ! " 

For eighteen months after this the compassionate Berryer 
left poor Latude unsolaced in his dungeon ; at the end of 
that time he had him removed to a more comfortable apart- 
ment, and offered him the companionship of a servant if he 
could procure one to share his captivity. Persons confined 
under a lettre de cachet could sometimes obtain this favor on 
condition that the servant should share the imprisonment of 
his master until the death or pardon of his principal released 
him from his obhgation. 

Pierre Cochar, the young man whom the family of Latude 
succeeded in inducing to share the solitude of their kins- 
man, soon broke down under the horrors of captivity. He 
pined, he bewailed his engagement, and at last fell ill. In 
vain his master implored his release from prison. He was 
only carried from the cell when in his dying agony. 

The three months of imprisonment which killed Cochar 
were the three least intolerable months in a captivity of 
thirty-five years suffered by his unhappy master. M. Berryer, 
unwearied in his kindness, next procured him the society of 
another prisoner, young, enthusiastic, talented, and full of spirit, 
who had already languished three years in the Bastille under 
a lettre de cachet. He had written to Madame de Pompadour, 
" pointing out the odium in which she was held by the pub- 
lic, and tendering advice as to how she might recover the 
good opinion of the nation while retaining the confidence of 
the king." 

This young man was named D'Alegre ; and towards 
him, as towards Latude, Madame de Pompadour had 
sworn undying vengeance. Penetrated with the conviction 
that only her death or her disgrace could end their mis- 
ery, Latude was maddened into energy, D'Alegre reduced to 
despair. The former planned, and both together executed, 
the most daring escape known in prison annals. It was out 
of the question to attempt to get out of the Bastille by its 
gates. " There remained," says Latude, " no other way but by 
the air." In their chamber was a chimney, the flue of which 



78 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

came out at the top of the tower ; but, like all those in the 
Bastille, it was filled with iron gratings, the bars of which were 
hardly far enough apart to let the smoke pass upward. From 
the top of this chimney to the ground was a descent of two 
hundred feet. The ground, however, was a deep moat, com- 
manded on its other side by a very high wall. 

The two prisoners had no means of communicating with 
the world outside their prison. They had no implements, 
and no materials ; only their bare hands, their education, and 
their manhood. 

The first thing to be done was to get to the top of the 
chimney ; or, to speak more correctly, they had to begin by 
discovering a place of concealment for any tools and mate- 
rials they might find means to secure. Latude came to the 
conclusion that there must be a space between their floor and 
the ceiling of the chamber beneath them. In order to make 
sure of this he made use of an ingenious stratagem. 

There was a chapel attached to the Bastille in which four 
little closets were arranged for any prisoners permitted to 
attend mass. This was a great favor, but it was enjoyed, 
thanks to M. Berryer, by our young men, and by the pris- 
oner in No. 3, the room beneath theirs. Latude got D'Alegre 
to drop his toothpick case while going up the stairs, near 
the door of No. 3 ; to let it roll downstairs, and ask the turn- 
key to pick it up for him. While the man (who was still 
living in 1790) was so engaged, Latude contrived to get a 
hurried peep into the chamber. He measured it with his 
eye, and thought its height about ten (French) feet and a 
half. He then measured, one step of the stairs and counted 
thirty-two of them up to their own apartment. This con- 
vinced him that there must be a considerable space between 
the ceiling of No. 3 and the floor of the room he and 
D'Alegre occupied. 

As soon as he and his companion were shut into their own 
chamber, he threw himself on his friend's neck, exclaiming 
in a transport of dehght, " We are saved ! " D'Alegre 
naturally objected that they had no tools, and no materials. 
" Yes ! " cried Latude, " in my trunk there are at least a 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUDE. 79 

thousand feet of rope ! " In Languedoc, as still in Germany 
and in some parts of Scotland, the domestic life of woman- 
kind was simplified in those days by the practice of having 
the family washing done about three times a year. This 
necessitated enormous supphes of linen. Latude had been 
permitted to have his wardrobe sent him. He had thirteen 
dozen and a half of linen shirts, and towels, stockings, and 
night-caps in proportion. Part of this linen he had bought 
cheap from French soldiers after the plunder of Bergen-op- 
Zoom. 

They had a folding table with two iron hooks, which fas- 
tened it to the wall. They managed to sharpen these hooks, 
and in two hours more had whetted part of the steel of their 
tinder-box until it made a sort of knife, which enabled them 
to fix handles to the hooks, which were to be used to get the 
gratings out of the chimney. Their first work, however, was 
to raise some tiles from the floor of their room, when, after 
digging about six hours, they ascertained that there was in- 
deed a space of about four feet between their floor and the 
ceiling below them. They then replaced the tiles and pro- 
ceeded to draw out the threads of their shirts, one by one. 
These were knotted together, and wound into two large balls, 
each of which was composed of fifty strands sixty feet long. 
Of these they next twisted a rope about fifty-five feet in 
length, with which they contrived a rope-ladder of twenty 
feet, intended to assist their work in the chimney. 

For six months they labored to remove the iron gratings. 
An hour at a time was all each man could endure at this 
arduous employment, and they never came down without 
their hands and legs being covered with blood. The iron 
bars were set in exceedingly hard mortar, which they had no 
means of softening but by blowing water on it from their 
mouths, and it took a whole night to work away the eighth 
of an inch. When a bar was taken out they reset it loosely 
in its place again. Next they went to work on a ladder of 
wood, on which they intended to mount from the moat to 
the top of the wall, and thence to descend into the garden of 
the governor. It was from twenty to twenty-five feet long, and 



8o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

must have cost incredible labor. They next found that they 
would want blocks and pulleys, which could not be made 
without a saw. This saw they contrived out of their iron 
candlestick, and the remainder of the steel in their tinder- 
box. With their rude knife, their saw, and the iron hooks, 
they chopped and fashioned the firewood doled out to them. 
Their ladder had one upright, through which holes were 
pierced for the rungs. It was constructed in three pieces, 
mortised and fitted so that they could be put together at any 
moment. Each hole had its rung, and two wedges to keep 
it steady attached to it by a pack-thread. The upright was 
three inches in diameter, and the rungs projected about a 
foot on either side. 

As each piece was finished, it was carefully laid away under 
the floor. They also made a pair of dividers, a square, and 
a carpenter's rule. 

The prisoners were liable to domicihary visits, though none 
were ever made them after dark. They therefore worked 
during the night, and had to be careful not to leave a chip 
or shaving to betray them. For fear they should be over- 
heard when speaking of their project, they invented names 
for all their tools, and signs to put each other on their guard 
when threatened by any danger. 

Their principal rope-ladder, which was to let them down 
from the roof of the Bastille to the moat, was one hundred and 
eighty feet long. When the Bastille was captured in 1789, it 
was found in the museum of the place, among the curiosities 
of the prison. 

The roof of the Bastille, after they should have descended 
twenty feet from the tower in which they were confined, pro- 
jected about four feet over the main building, and in order 
to keep the person steady who should be descending the rope- 
ladder, they made a second rope, three hundred and sixty 
feet long, which was to be reeved through a block for the 
fugitive to hold on by. 

They continued to manufacture smaller ropes for various 
purposes, until they had almost fourteen hundred feet of 
rope, and two hundred and eight wooden rounds for their 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LATUDE. 8 1 

two ladders. These rounds were muffled by strips of their 
clothing. 

Presuming them to have reached the moat, the next ques- 
tion was how to cross the wall, which was at all times lined 
with sentinels. They dared not risk the darkness of a rainy 
night, and were afraid of the torches carried by the Grand 
Round. They resolved, if necessary, to undermine the wall 
which stood between the moat of the Bastille and the Fosse 
« of the Porte St. Antoine. For this purpose they needed an 
auger, and made it out of one of their bed-screws. 

The day fixed for their escape was Wednesday, Feb. 5, 
1756, seven years after the first imprisonment of Latude. 
They packed up a portmanteau, containing for each of them 
a change of clothes, and provided themselves with a bottle 
of cordial. In the afternoon they risked putting together their 
great rope-ladder. Happily no one looked in upon them, 
and they hid it under a bed. The gratings were already out 
in the chimney. 

After supper their turnkey locked them in for the night, 
and the moment of escape had arrived. Latude was the first 
to climb the chimney. He had rheumatism in his arm, but 
was conscious of no pain under the inflqence of excitement. 
Choked by soot, and with his knees and arms excoriated, 
he reached the open air, and sent down a ball of twine to 
D'Alegre, who tied it to the end of a rope, to which was fas- 
tened their portmanteau. In this way they hauled up their 
various stores. D'Alegre came up last on the loose end of 
the rope-ladder. On looking over the roof of the Bastille 
they decided to descend from the foot of another tower, the 
Tour de Tresson, where they perceived a gun-carriage to 
which they could fasten the rope-ladder, and their block with 
the guide-line. Latude, with this Hne fastened to his body, 
went gently down the ladder, watched breathlessly by his 
companion. Notwithstanding all precautions, he swung fear- 
fully. The remembrance of it, forty-five years after, made 
him, he says, shudder. At last he landed safely in the moat. 
D'Alegre lowered the portmanteau and other articles, for 
which a dry spot on the bank was luckily found. When 

6 



82 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

these things were all down he descended, and found Latude 
up to his waist in water. 

It was with much regret that they left their ropes behind 
them. Latude recovered them thirty-three years after, July 
i6, 1789, and they were publicly exhibited during the excite- 
ment that succeeded the destruction of the Bastille. It did 
not rain, and they heard the sentry treading his rounds 
about twelve yards from them, so that there was no hope 
of crossing the wall, for which they had prepared their 
wooden ladder. The alternative was to pierce it. The 
water was very cold, and there was floating ice upon its 
surface. They chose the deepest part of the moat, and for 
nine hours worked in water up to their arm-pits, diving when 
alarmed by the torches of the Grand Round. 

At last through a wall four and a half feet thick, they 
made a hole wide enough to admit their bodies. They 
scrambled through into the Fosse St. Antoine, got out 
of this, and were rejoicing in their safety, when they fell 
into another drain whose situation had been unknown to 
them. It was only two yards wide, but it was very deep, 
and at the bottom were two feet of slime and mud. Latude 
fell in first, and D'Alegre on top of him. Vigorously exert- 
ing himself, however, Latude scrambled out, and dragged 
up his companion by the hair. As the clocks of Paris were 
striking five in the morning, they found themselves upon 
the highway. 

Their first impulse was to embrace each other, their 
next to fall down on their knees and to return thanks to 
the Almighty. They then proceeded to change their clothes, 
but they were so exhausted that neither could have dressed 
himself without the assistance of the other. 

Getting next into a hackney-coach, they were driven to 
the residence of M. Silhouette, chancellor to the Due 
d'Orl^ans. He was away from home. They then took 
refuge with a tailor of Languedoc. 

Here they remained concealed for nearly a month, while 
a search was set on foot for them in all directions. D'Alegre 
left first, disguised as a peasant, and went to Brussels (then 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 83 

the capital of the Austrian Netherlands), sending word back 
to Latude that he was safe, by some secret sign arranged be- 
tween them. 

Provided with false papers through the help of the good 
tailor, and the documents of an old lawsuit, Latude set out 
upon his journey to Brussels. He walked some leagues out 
of Paris and let the diligence to Valenciennes pick him up 
upon the high-road. The story that he told was that he 
was a servant going to Amsterdam to carry his master's 
brother some important papers. He met with several small 
adventures on his journey, and committed some acts of 
imprudence ; for example, on passing the boundary between 
France and Austria (a wooden post, painted with lilies 
on one side and an imperial eagle on the other) he fell 
upon his face and kissed the dust, to the amazement of 
his fellow-travellers. Eleven years before he had passed 
part of a winter in Brussels ; he was therefore well ac- 
quainted with its localities. On inquiring for his friend at 
the Hotel de Coffi, in the Place de I'Hotel de Ville, where 
he had planned to meet D'Alegre, he became convinced, 
from the hesitation and prevarication of the landlord, that 
evil had befallen his comrade. He therefore resolved to 
start at once for Antwerp. He was dressed like a servant, 
and travelled like one. In the canal-boat in which he 
took his passage, he found a chatty young Savoyard chimney- 
sweep and his wife, who related to him, as news of the day, 
the details of his own escape, and ended by informing him, 
that one of the two fugitives had been arrested a few days, 
before, by the high provost of Brussels, who had sent him 
at once over the French frontier in charge of a French 
police officer. The Savoyard added that this story had been 
told him by the servant of an official who had charged him to 
keep the matter close, as they were anxious to secure the 
arrest of the other party. Greatly alarmed at what he 
heard, and full of solicitude for poor D'Alegre, Latude 
determined to break off from the Savoyard, and left him 
at the first stopping place, under pretence that he had 
taken the wrong boat for Bergen-op-Zoom. He pushed 



84 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

on alone on foot until he reached the Dutch frontier, quak- 
ing at every footstep ; for the fate of D'Alegre proved that 
the Austrian Netherlands were no safe asylum. 

He had had seven louis d'or (thirty-five dollars) when he 
left Paris, and this litde sum was now exhausted. While try- 
ing to relieve his hunger on a canal-boat by some black bread 
and a salad of grass, he excited the compassion of Jan 
Seerhorst, who kept a sort of tavern in Amsterdam. This 
man took him under his protection and promised to intro- 
duce him to a Frenchman^ who proved, however, to be from 
Picardy, and acknowledged little fellowship with a native 
of Languedoc ; but Seerhorst, seeing the disappointment of 
Latude, took him to his own abode, where he slept with 
five other persons in a cellar. 

Chance next threw our escaped prisoner in the way 
of a native of the same town as himself, named Louis 
Clergue, who gave him clothes, linen, and a comfortable 
chamber. On learning his story, he expressed great alarm 
lest the same power that had arrested D'Alegre in the Aus- 
trian Netherlands should extend to Holland. He proposed 
to get Latude a passport to Surinam, but the young man, 
made confident by the opinion of Clergue's friends that 
the States-General would never betray an unfortunate fugi- 
tive, decided to remain in Amsterdam. 

The French ambassador at the Hague was already negotiat- 
ing for his arrest. Among the records of the Bastille were 
found proofs that it cost the French Government upwards 
of forty thousand dollars to effect his recapture. Part of 
this money is supposed to have been spent in bribery. 

June I, 1756, as Latude went to a bank to receive a 
letter and remittance from his father, he was arrested in 
broad daylight, and dragged through the streets of Amster- 
dam with violence and blows, like a notorious criminal. 

In vain Louis Clergue and his friends protested against 
the outrage. Latude was closely confined, and permission 
had been obtained from the Archduke Charles, the repre- 
sentative of Maria Theresa, to take him through Austrian 
territory. When this arrived, with a belt around his body 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 85 

to which his arms were pinioned, Latude began his journey 
under charge of Saint-Marc, a French agent of poHce who 
had arrested him. 

Travelling with all kinds of tortures and indignities, 
Latude arrived at Lille. There he was fastened for the 
night to a deserter of nineteen, who was to be hanged 
next day, and who proposed that they should strangle each 
other. The next evening he reached the Bastille. Here 
Saint-Marc received a sort of ovation, and Latude was 
committed to a dungeon under charge of his former jailers, 
who had suffered three months' imprisonment for his 
escape. 

In this dungeon, desperate and hopeless as his situation 
was, he still found something to cheer and occupy him. 
He made friends with the rats, numbers of which came 
hunting for food and lodging in his straw. The dungeons 
in the Bastille were octagonal. The one in which he was 
confined had loopholes eighteen inches wide on the interior, 
reduced to three inches by the time they reached the outer 
wall. There was no furniture in the dungeon, and the 
sills of the loopholes served for seat and table. Latude 
often rested his chained arms upon these slabs to lighten 
the weight of his fetters. 

One day while in this attitude a rat approached him. 
He threw it a bit of bread. The rat ate it eagerly, and 
when his appetite was satisfied carried off a crust into his 
hole. The next day he came again, and was rewarded 
by more bread and a bit of bacon. The third day he would 
take food from Latude's hand. After this he took up his 
quarters in a hole in the wall near the window, and after 
sleeping in it two nights, brought to it a female companion. 
Sometimes she quarrelled with her mate over their food, and 
generally had the best of it, retiring to her sleeping place 
with the disputed morsel. On such occasions the old rat 
would seek refuge with Latude, and devour out of his 
mate's reach whatever was given him, with an air of 
bravado. 

Soon, whenever dinner was brought in, Latude called his 



86 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

family. The male rat would come immediately, the female 
more timidly. Soon appeared a third rat, very famihar and 
sociable, who no sooner felt at home than he proceeded to 
introduce seven others. At the end of a fortnight the family 
consisted of ten large rats, and subsequently of their pro- 
geny. They would eat off a plate that their human friend 
provided for them, and liked to have their necks scratched, 
but he was never suffered to touch one on the back. He 
gave them all names to which they learned to answer, 
and taught them tricks of various kinds. One of them, 
a female, was a remarkable jumper, and very proud of her 
accomplishment. 

For two years Latude solaced his captivity by this strange 
society. One day he found a bit of elder in his cell, brought in 
in some fresh straw ; and although his hands were manacled, 
he contrived, by the help of a buckle from his small-clothes, 
to fashion it into a flageolet. His attachment to this instru- 
ment was such that he never parted with it during his 
lifetime. 

At last he bethought him of the advantage it would be to 
the French army if its sergeants as well as privates carried 
fire-arms, instead of the old-fashioned halberd, half pike, half 
battle-axe. He proposed to recommend this improvement 
to the king, hoping thus to direct his attention to himself 
He was no longer allowed pen and paper. He had there- 
fore to invent substitutes. His paper was made out of 
tablets of moistened bread, his pen was a sharp fish-bone, 
and his ink his blood. 

When he had finished his memorial, he obtained per- 
mission to see Father Griffet, the confessor of the Bastille. 
From him he obtained writing materials, and in April, 1758, 
the memorial was presented to Louis XV. 

The plan, being found beneficial to the service (as it in- 
creased the effective force by twenty thousand men), was 
carried out ; but no notice was taken of Latude. 

Three months passed, and he ventured on a new sugges- 
tion. This was to add a cent and a half to the postage of 
every letter, and use the proceeds as a fund to pension the 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF I A TUBE. 8/ 

widows of officers and soldiers killed in battle. This likewise 
was adopted, so far as the increased postage went ; but the 
prisoner was still disregarded. 

Among the papers found in the Bastille when it was 
sacked in 1789, was a letter from an oculist, Dr. Dejean, 
ordered about this time to examine Latude's eyes. Each 
prisoner au secret had a prison name ; that of Latude was 
Daury. 

Monsieur, — In compliance with your v/ishes I have several 
times visited the prisoner Daury in the Bastille. Having care- 
fully examined his eyes, and reflected on all he has communi- 
cated, I am not surprised that his sight has almost entirely 
failed. For many years he has been deprived of sun and air; 
he has been chained hand and foot in a cell for forty months. 
. . . The winter of 1756-57 was extremely severe ; the Seine 
was frozen over, as in the year preceding. During this period 
the prisoner was confined in a dungeon with irons on his hands 
and feet, and no bed but a truss of straw, without covering. 
In his cell there are two loopholes, five inches wide, and about 
five feet long, with neither panes of glass nor shutters to close 
them. Throughout the day and night his face is exposed to the 
cold and wind, and there is nothing so destructive to the sight 
as frosty air, — especially during sleep. A continual running 
at the nose has split his upper lip until the teeth are exposed ; 
the intense cold has decayed them, and the roots of his mus- 
tachios have likewise perished. (The walls of the Bastille are 
from nine to ten feet thick, consequently the chambers are ex- 
tremely damp.) This prisoner, unable to endure his situation, 
resolved to commit suicide. With this object he remained 
one hundred and thirty-three hours without eating or drinking. 
They forced open his mouth with keys, and compelled him to 
swallow food by main force. Seeing himself restored to life 
against his will, he contrived to secrete a piece of broken glass, 
with which he opened four principal veins. During the night 
his blood flowed incessantly, and there remained scarcely six 
ounces in his body. He continued many days in a state of in- 
sensibility. . . . He is no longer a young man, and has passed 
the meridian of life, being forty-two years old, and has gone 
through very severe trials. For fifteen years he has been a 
constant prisoner, and during seven of them entirely deprived 
of fire, light, and sun. ... I have considered it my duty to be 



88 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

thus minute in my report, as it is useless to waste the public 
money in paying me for my visits or remedies. Nothing but 
the termination of his sufferings, with fresli air and exercise, 
can preserve to the prisoner the feeble remnant of his eyesight. 
Air will strengthen every part of his frame, and exercise will 
disperse the humors in his head, which at present bring on 
the convulsive fits he is subject to, — fits which will ultimately 
extinguish the powers of vision. 

(Signed) Dejean. 

This heart-rending letter produced no effect. It needed 
an overflow of the Seine, which put the floor of the dungeon 
under water, and wet the feet of the turnkeys who brought 
him food, to procure any alleviation. 

The room into which he was next moved had a view of 
the open sky, and was much less damp and miserable. He 
was separated, however, from his rats, which he regretted 
bitterly until he contrived to tame two beautiful white 
pigeons, which he caught from his loophole with a noose. 
His delight when the pigeons built their nest, and hatched 
their brood inside his cell,- amounted to ecstasy. All the 
officers of the Bastille came to look at them. But, alas ! the 
turnkey (one of those who had suffered punishment some 
years before for his escape) resolved to deprive him of his 
pets, or to make him pay dear for the privilege of keeping 
them. He already received one bottle of wine in seven of 
the prisoner's allowance. He now demanded four ; and when 
this was refused, he pretended an order from the governor 
to kill the pigeons. Latude's despair drove him to sudden 
madness. The turnkey made a movement towards the 
birds. Latude sprang forward, and with his own hands 
destroyed them. "This was probably," he says, "the most 
unhappy moment of my whole existence. I never recall the 
memory of it without the bitterest pangs. I remained sev- 
eral days without taking nourishment. Grief and indigna- 
tion divided my soul." 

Not long after this a change came in his condition. A 
new governor, the Comte de Jumilhac, came to the Bastille. 
He was a man of generosity and mercy, and took pity on 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF lA TUBE. 89 

Latude, whom he permitted to walk every day two hours 
on the roof. He also procured him an interview with M. de 
Sartine, lieutenant of police, who had succeeded M. Berryer. 
From this time forth for twenty years Latude's existence was 
one long struggle with De Sartine. 

Encouraged by the interest which at first he believed 
himself to have inspired in the new minister, he made two 
new plans for the good of the public : one for the better 
regulation of the currency, subsequently adopted, with httle 
benefit to France, by the National Assembly ; the other a 
plan for the establishment of national granaries, the ex- 
penses of which were to be met by a tax on marriage. 

This plan was considered so important that De Sartine 
wished to adopt it as his own, and offered his prisoner an 
annuity of three hundred dollars to give it up, promising his 
influence to procure his liberation. " I would not part vvith 
my plan for fifty thousand crowns down ! " cried Latude, 
vehemently. 

" If I were in your place," said the aide majeur of the 
Bastille, deputed to conduct the negotiation, " I should think 
myself too happy to receive the proposal." 

" No doubt you would — if I were you ! " replied the 
prisoner, with a sneer. He thus made himself two powerfiil 
enemies ; and Father Griffet prophesied the truth when he 
told him, "Your refusal, and more particularly the manner 
in which you made it, will incense M. de Sartine against you, 
and I fear he will give you reason to repent." 

The food of the Bastille seems to have been sufficient, 
though Latude complained bitterly about the cooking. It 
ought to have been far better than it was, for the king paid 
from a dollar and a quarter to two dollars a day for the 
subsistence of each prisoner. 

Whilst walking on the roof of the Bastille, Latude heard 
from a soldier who had served under his father, that the old 
man was dead. This cut off his supplies of money. From 
that time his relations took litde notice of him, with the ex- 
ception of his mother, who must have been a second wife, 
as she speaks of him as her only son, while he tells us that 



90 TI-IE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

his elder brother, the Comte de Vissac, succeeded to the title 
of Marquis de Latude. 

Here is a letter that the poor mother addressed to the 
Marquise de Pompadour. She was occasionally permitted 
to send a letter to her son : — 

" My son, madame, has long groaned in the dungeons of the 
Bastille for having had the misfortune to offend you. My grief 
surpasses his. Day and night his sad fate torments my imagi- 
nation. I share all the agony of his sufferings without having 
participated in his fault. What do I say? Alas! I know not 
how he has displeased you. He was young, and had been led 
astray by others. How differently must he reason now ! The 
reflections of a prisoner are very opposite to the vain thoughts 
of unbridled youth. If he, madame, is unworthy of your par- 
don, extend your indulgence to me in his stead ; feel for my 
situation ; have compassion on an afflicted mother ; let your 
heart be softened by my tears. Death will soon close my eyes. 
Do not wait till I am in my grave to show compassion to my 
son. He is my only child, the sole shoot of the stock, the last 
scion of my family, the only prop of my old age. Restore him 
to me, madame, you who are so kind-hearted {si bonne). Do 
not refuse me my son, madame ; give him up to my afiiiction ; 
restore him to my entreaties, my sighs, my tears." 

Latude's next attempt was to throw a package from the 
roof of the Bastille to some one who would pick it up and 
forward it to its destination. Having made himself as ob- 
noxious as possible to the aide majeur and two sergeants 
deputed to watch him in his walk, he was left to himself 
while they conversed together ; and he contrived to establish 
a correspondence by signs with two young workwomen, whom 
he observed at an upper window in a neighboring street. 
After some time he made them understand that he would 
throw them a package. 

This package the arrogant, exasperated, imprudent young 
man filled with a memorial addressed to a literary man 
named La Beaumelle, containing a secret history of Madame 
de Pompadour's early life, abounding in scandals. " I 
steeped my pen in the gall with which my whole heart and 




MME. DE POMPADOUR. 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 91 

soul were overflowing," he says. He wrote upon a shirt, with 
a pen which, in anticipation of our pens of the present day, 
he fashioned out of a copper coin. But ink was wanting. 
For eight years he had never been allowed fire or candle. 
He affected toothache, got one of his guards to let him have 
a whiff or two of his pipe, and having let it go out begged 
for his tinder-box to light it again. In this way he obtained 
and secreted a bit of tinder. Next lie pretended to be 
taken with violent pains, and the doctor ordered him some 
oil. This he put in a pomatum pot with a wick made of 
threads drawn from his linen. By friction he obtained a 
spark which set fire to his tinder. It enabled him to light 
his lamp, and he was in an ecstasy of triumph and happiness. 
With this lamp and an old plate, he got lamp-black, which 
he mixed with some syrup prescribed for him by the doc- 
tor, and then proceeded to pen his memorial to his own 
destruction. 

Sept. 21, 1763, he flung his package. Mademoiselle 
Lebrun picked it up as he intended, and he waited the re- 
sult. Nothing came of it, however, until April 18, 1764, 
when the sisters held up a placard at their window : " The 
Marchioness de Pompadour died yesterday^ Wild with de- 
light and hope, he wrote on the instant (having in the interval 
been permitted to receive writing materials) to demand his 
liberation from M. de Sartine. Every officiarin the Bastille 
had been charged not to communicate the news of Madame 
de Pompadour's death to the prisoners. The lieutenant of 
police was therefore amazed on the receipt of this letter. 
He sent for Latude, and told him that his liberation de- 
pended upon his divulging the channel through which the 
news had reached him. Latude broke into violent language, 
little calculated to advance his interests. In vain he subse- 
quently offered De Sartine the project about the granaries ; 
the personal enmity of Madame de Pompadour had passed 
into the body of the minister, and a few months later Latude 
further exasperated De Sartine by writing him another abusive 
and indignant letter. In consequence of this, he was re- 
moved to Vincennes with especial orders to the governor to 



92 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

keep him safe, and to put him in an oubliette. Here he 
was taken very ill, and the good governor, M. Guyonnet, 
took pity upon him. He gave him a better chamber and 
allowed him to walk, attended by three guards, in the garden 
of the castle. The result of this last indulgence was that 
Latude made his escape in a dense fog. " Seize him ! 
seize him ! " was shouted all over the grounds of the castle. 
" Seize him ! " cried Latude, running ahead of the others, 
until he reached the sentry at the gate, whom he threw down, 
and jumped over as the man was gaping with surprise. 
. Latude took refuge close to the Bastille with the Lebrun 
sisters. They were daughters of a hair-dresser, and were 
poor, but very good to him. They had, however, mismanaged 
his memorial. His scheme had been to place it in safe 
hands, while he threatened Madame de Pompadour with 
its circulation. The first thing he did in the Lebrun house 
was to write a letter of repentance and submission to M. 
de Sartine. 

What effect this appeal may have produced cannot be 
known. Its answer miscarried ; and Latude, more angry than 
ever at finding no notice taken of what he wrote, threw him- 
self at the feet of the Prince de Conti. 

A reward of one thousand crowns was this time offered for 
his returh to prison. All channels of communication with 
the court appeared to be closed. He, however, contrived 
in the middle of winter, weary, torn, famished, and looking 
like a lunatic, to reach Fontainebleau, and there requested 
an audience with the good Due de Choiseul, the prime min- 
ister. The duke, influenced, as Latude maintains, by M. de 
Sartine, believed him to be out of his senses, and returned 
him into the power of the police, who restored him to Vin- 
cennes, where he was immured in a more frightful dungeon 
than any he had yet inhabited. It had four iron-plate doors, 
each one foot from the other, and no other opening whatever. 
It was six and one half feet long by five and three quarters 
wide, just long enough to lie down in. Here, to increase 
his sufferings, he was informed that Viel-Castel, the sergeant 
from whom he had escaped, had been hanged. Months after, 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 93 

a compassionate sentinel, moved by his grief at the supposed 
fate of the poor fellow, assured him that it was a falsehood. 

His escape put it out of M. Guyonnet's power to give him 
any more indulgences. " M. de Sartine," he said to his 
prisoner, " lays the blame of your escape on me. He is 
furious at it. Your case is hopeless. From henceforward I 
can only pity you." Here is a letter from him, however, at 
this period, found among the records of the Bastille. 

To M. de Sartine. 

Monsieur, — I have this morning visited the prisoner 
Daury. I found him given up to despair as usual, but always 
submissive, and entirely disposed to agree with any condition^ 
you may prescribe as the price of his liberty. I am sorry to 
add that grief has destroyed his appetite, but he still retains his 
mental faculties. Heaven grant this may continue ! I have the 
honor to be, etc., etc. 

About this time three of the police were sent by M. de 
Sartine to say : " You can by one word obtain your liberty. 
Give M. de Sartine the name and the address of the person 
who has possession of your papers. He pledges his word 
of honor no evil shall be practised towards him." Latude 
rephed : " I entered this dungeon an honest man ; I will 
die rather than leave it a knave and a coward." 

After this, in frightful darkness, for in the oubliette he 
could distinguish neither night nor day, his sufferings would 
have reached their close, had not a compassionate turnkey 
brought the prison doctor to visit him, who insisted he must 
be moved at once to a better room. The reply was that M. 
de Sartine had expressly forbidden it. The doctor, however, 
insisted, and the removal was accomphshed. By degrees his 
strength returned to him, and he requested pen and ink to 
write to M. de Sartine. These were judiciously refused him. 
Probably the officers at Vincennes were afraid lest the lieu- 
tenant of police should find out that he was not still in his 
dungeon. 

His next enterprise was to bore a hole with an auger 
through the wall of the donjon of Vincennes. This he did 



94 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

by means of part of an old sword and an iron hoop from a 
bucket, which a year before he had picked up and secreted 
in the garden. This garden he was no longer allowed to 
walk in, but by a stratagem he succeeded in being double- 
locked into it for half an hour, and returned to his prison 
very happy, with the broken sword in the leg of his drawers, 
and the hoop round his body. 

The granite wall was five feet thick. It took Latude 
twenty-six months, with his imperfect tools, to make his 
aperture. The hole was long displayed to visitors, and 
very probably may still be seen. Latude himself showed it 
to the Prince de Beauvau during the early days of the 
Revolution. It was made in the shadow of the chimney- 
piece, and closed by a cork ; a long peg was thrust through 
it, not quite the length of the hole. If anybody had 
observed it from without, or sounded it, they would have 
found it only two inches deep upon the garden side. 
Latude then fashioned a wooden wand about six feet long. 
To this he tied a bit of ribbon, and thrusting it through the 
hole he secured the attention of a prisoner who was walking 
in the garden. This was a Baron de Venae from Languedoc, 
confined nineteen years for offering impertinent advice to 
Madame de Pompadour. There was another prisoner there, 
arrested on suspicion of having spoken ill of the same 
infamous woman. There was also an Abbe Prieur, who had 
conceived the idea of phonetic spelling. He wrote on the 
subject to Frederick the Great, as one of the patrons of men 
of literature, " a letter consisting of words of his own com- 
position, and of course they were wholly illegible." Accord- 
ing to custom, it was opened at the post-office. Ministers, 
not being able to comprehend the contents, imagined they 
beheld hieroglyphics full of treason and danger, and the 
unfortunate abb^ was committed to Vincennes for an offense, 
adds Latude, " that at most merited a short confinement in a 
mad-house to teach him to spell." He had been in captivity 
seven years. 

Another prisoner had been arrested at Antwerp on suspi- 
cion of being the author of a pamphlet against Madame de 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF lATUDE. 95 

Pompadour, which he had never seen. He had been twenty- 
three years m confinement. No evidence liad ever been 
produced against him, nor had he ever been allowed any 
opportunity of proving his innocence. An old man whose 
daughter was an inmate of the Pare aux Cerfs, was confined 
on a lettre de cachet obtained by that daughter, who dreaded 
his remonstrances on the infamy of her career. 

There were also three other prisoners in close confinement 
for daring to express the views of honest men upon an in- 
famous monopoly, which towards the end of Louis XV. 's 
reign almost reduced the kingdom to bankruptcy. 

All these prisoners were confined on lettt-es de cachet, which 
were orders for the arrest and imprisonment of individuals 
in the king's own handwriting, countersigned by a secretary 
of state and sealed with the king's seal. Many of these 
were distributed to important persons, and to heads of noble 
families, who kept them for their own use, and filled up the 
space left blank for the prisoner's name with that of some 
victim of their own selection. No one imprisoned on a 
lettre de cachet could be defended by counsel. L\rmi des 
hommes, the father of Mirabeau, is said to have used fifteen 
of them. When a member of a noble house had done any- 
thing to offend its head, or had committed any offense whose 
exposure would have been painful to other members of his 
family, he was quietly disposed of by a kitre de cachet. 

One day in 1774 Latude, in a fit of petulance, declared 
that he would rather be sent back to his oubliette, never to 
quit it until M. de Sartine sent a lawyer to hear and to 
advise him, than remain forever disregarded. He was taken 
at his word, and the next day was removed to the dark and 
loathsome cell he had once nearly died in. About this time 
M. de Sartine was made minister of marine, and his place 
in the police was supplied by his personal friend Lenoir. 

Not knowing of this change, and still endeavoring to write 
to M. de Sartine, Latude on one occasion procured a light 
by means of several straws tied together, which he thrust out, 
while his jailer's attention was turned a moment, to a candle 
that the man had brought into the gallery while handing to 



96 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

the prisoner his daily food. With this Latude instantly lighted 
a lamp he had prepared in his pomatum pot, and covered it 
over with a sort of beehive he had constructed with wisps of 
straw. When it was discovered that he had possessed him- 
self of a light, the turnkeys began to dread him as one who 
had a familiar demon. 

All the pains he took to address M. de Sartine in various 
strains, vituperative or pathetic, were entirely useless. That 
minister had long before given orders that no letters from 
Latude were to be opened, even by his secretary. When 
the Bastille was destroyed, nearly one hundred of these docu- 
ments were found with their seals unbroken. 

It seems probable that at this period Latude really lost 
his reason. As he was recovering, having been removed to 
a better chamber, the door of his cell opened, and the lieu- 
tenant of police announced a visit from the prime minister, 
the good and great M. de Malesherbes. When Latude told 
him he had been imprisoned twenty-six years, his face 
expressed the deepest indignation. He told him to take 
heart, supplied him with money, and took him under his 
protection. But De Sartine, as Latude always suspected, did 
all that fear and vengeance could suggest to prevent his 
liberation. He informed M. de Malesherbes that Latude 
was a confirmed lunatic, and he was in consequence re- 
moved to the hospital for insane prisoners at Charenton. 

He went to this place with the new name of Le Danger 
instead of that of Daury, and with an especial recommenda- 
tion to the brethren who had charge of the insane to treat 
him with severity. It was not long, however, before he 
entered into communication with prisoners in the next 
chamber. These were not lunatics ; they were young men 
of good family but ungovernable dispositions, confined by 
their relatives on lettres de cachet. They led sufficiently 
comfortable lives, had good food and good society. The 
chief among them was a young man named Saint-Luc, who 
took compassion on Latude, and succeeded in interesting 
the brethren in his protegL Latude became a favorite even 
among the madmen. 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LATUDE. 97 

, Among these last at Charenton were some who were 
subject to periodical fits of frenzy. While these lasted they 
were chained in subterranean dens, or confined in iron 
cages. When they recovered they were tkken back to the 
other prisoners. One of these men told Latude that in one 
of the dreadful cages was D'Alegre, his former comrade. 
His mind had given way after he was restored to the Bastille. 
He had become a raving maniac, and for ten years had 
been confined at Charenton. Latude requested permission 
to visit him. He found a squalid spectre, who replied to 
all he said to him with curses. In vain Latude tried to 
recall himself to his remembrance. This was in 1770. 
D'Alegre was still living in 1790. 

Thanks to the good ofiices of one of the prisoners, con- 
fined under a lettre de cachet for drawing his sword upon 
his elder brother, an order for Latude's hberation (July 7, 
1777) at last reached him. He set out on the instant for 
Paris — hke a madman — clad in rags, and without a sou 
in his pocket. 

On arriving, he sought out a man from his own village, 
who told him that the people of that place believed that 
after his escape to Holland he had embarked for the West 
Indies, and had perished on the ocean. This man lent 
him twenty-five louis. With this money he fitted himself 
out with clothes, and next day visited, as he had been 
directed to do, the lieutenant of police, M. Lenoir. 

The order for his release had been accompanied by direc- 
tions to repair at once to his native town of Montagnac, 
which order Latude was determined to evade, if possible. 

Lenoir received him kindly enough, and gave him the 
address of a person charged by his family to provide him 
with necessaries. He even allowed him to go to Versailles 
to see the mother of his prison friend. At Versailles, by 
some means, he obtained an audience with the king (then 
Louis XVI.), and told his story. What he said on this 
occasion probably roused the fears and anger of the king's 
ministers. He was ordered to leave Paris at once, and 
found himself under the deepest displeasure of Lenoir. 

7 



98 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Alarmed at this, he took passage on a flatboat to Auxerre. 
Three days later he was arrested on the road, and taken 
back to Paris. There he was thrust into the Bicetre, — 
one of the lowest prisons. 

At the Bicetre he was treated as a miscreant and common 
malefactor, and was associated with wretches chained, like 
himself, in stalls along a gallery, " as horses are chained in 
a stable." Latude was now fifty-three years old, and nearly 
one half of his hfe had been passed in prisons. In the 
Bicetre all Latude's resources failed him. His friends, 
misled by the representations of the police, imagined he 
had been guilty of some ignominious crime, and seem to 
have abandoned him. He was herded with the lowest of 
his kind, and descended from his place as a gentleman. 
In vain he protested his innocence, and implored a trial. 
From that time (1777) for upwards of six years, his auto- 
biography, now a very scarce book, is a monotony of misery. 
His heart had even turned against the rats. " Those ac- 
cursed beasts," he calls, in the Bicetre, the animals who in 
the Bastille twenty years before had been his friends. He 
lost even his name, and was known as Father Jedor. He 
was covered with scorbutic sores, and sent to a hospital, a 
place still more loathsome than the prison. 

At last he was removed to a more comfortable apartment, 
an alleviation he soon forfeited by trying to interest a visitor 
(the Princesse de Beaulieu) in his favor. 

About this time M. Necker was called to be the king's 
prime minister, and Madame Necker made a visit of inspec- 
tion to the prisons. Her account of what she saw caused 
an eminent man, the President de Gourgue, to visit the 
prisoners. These men, dregs of rascality though they were, 
all seem to have felt compassion for Latude. They directed 
M. de Gourgue to his cell, and even one of the guards 
rejoiced to see the visitor shedding tears over its inhabitant. 

" The worst part of your case," said De Gourgue, "is that 
you are confined under a lettre de cachet. Send me a me- 
morial of your sufferings, and trust to my good offices." 

For nine days Latude sold his pittance of black bread to 



■ IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 99 

procure writing-paper. When his memorial was finished, 
with his last shirt and a pair of silk stockings, he bribed a 
prison underling to convey it to his protector. The man 
was drunk, and dropped it in the street. 

Happily for Latude, it was picked up by a woman who 
became his friend and guardian angel. The envelope was 
wet and stained. The seal was broken. The signature 
was, " Masers de Latude, a prisoner during thirty-two years 
at the Bastille, at Vincennes, and at the Bicetre, where he 
is confined on bread and water in a dungeon underground." 

Having read the record of his sufferings, this good woman, 
Madame Legros, resolved to effect the liberation of Latude. 
She copied the paper before she sent it to its destination. 
Her husband was a private teacher, and she kept a little 
thread-and-needle store. They had no personal influence, 
and their resources were very Hmited. On M. Legros' 
delivering the package with his own hands to M. de 
Gourgue, that gentleman told him that he had been greatly 
affected by the writer's story, and had taken steps on his 
behalf, but had been informed that for thirty-two years he 
had been a confirmed lunatic, whose confinement was 
necessary for his own and others' safety. 

Still M. and Madame Legros would not give up the cause 
oi\ht\x prote'ge- Madame Legros sought out the chaplain of 
the Bicetre, and obtained from him a certificate of the 
prisoner's sanity. She also went to the prison, where she 
saw the prisoners who were not an secret, and learned that 
the object of her interest was known amongst them as 
Father Jedor. 

With three louis, a great sum for her, she bribed one of 
the turnkeys to dehver to Latude a letter and a louis d'or. 
This was the first he had heard of his benefactress. He 
replied by imploring her to give up his cause rather than 
run any risk on his account. 

Both husband and wife, having made several copies of the 
memorial, approached various influential persons in Latude's 
behalf. M. Lenoir said that Latude was not in the Bicetre, 
but was a confirmed lunatic at Charenton. He added that 



100 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

he was accused of no crime, but his release would be dan- 
gerous to society. Afterwards he shifted his ground, and 
declared that, since Latude was imprisoned by the express 
orders of the king, he should not be justified in disputing 
the commands of his Majesty. 

This announcement alarmed all those whom Madame 
Legros had already interested in Latude 's favor. She, how- 
ever, would not relax her efforts, and addressed herself to 
upwards of two hundred persons with varying success. 

Next Madame Legros obtained an interview with Latude. 
She saw him for a few moments as he was conducted through 
the courtyard to receive a visit from a former chaplain of 
the Bicetre, and she was permitted by the humanity of his 
guards to exchange a few brief sentences with him. 

The first dauphin was born Oct. 22, 1781; and Latude, 
in common with other political prisoners, hoped for deliver- 
ance. He appealed, in presence of the king's commissioners 
of pardon appointed to examine the prisoners of the Bicetre, 
to M. Tristan, the governor, as to his behavior during the 
four years he had been in his custody. M. Tristan con- 
fessed that he had never given him cause of complaint. 

The Cardinal de Rohan, who was present, seemed much 
affected by his story, and spoke to the king upon the subject ; 
but Louis, irritated by the result of his former interference, 
declined to reopen the matter. Meantime the cardinal was 
beset by Madame Legros, and at last referred her to M. 
de Saint-Prest, one of the king's ministers. Saint-Prest 
described her protege as a common thief and an abandoned 
criminal ; and though she complained of this outrage to the 
cardinal, the affair of the diamond necklace was approach- 
ing a crisis, and that poor gentleman needed all his court 
influence to keep himself out of the Bastille. 

Next Madame Legros applied to a celebrated lawyer, the 
advocate De la Croix. He was barred from carrying the 
case before any tribunal by the law forbidding lawyers to 
defend any prisoner confined by lettre de cachet, but he 
took up the case warmly, and interested a certain Madame 
D. (could it have been De Stael?), wife and daughter of a 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. lOI 

minister. This lady became as much interested in Madame 
Legros as in the prisoner; but taking advantage of her 
position, she came to the Bicetre, and there heard from 
Latude's own lips his miserable story. 

Not long after this he had an interview with Lenoir, who 
could find no better evidence of his madness than that 
a man must have been mad to have attempted an escape 
from the Bastille. 

Next De la Croix interviewed De Sartine and drove him 
to exposing the real cause of Latude's detention. " If this 
man should obtain his liberty, he will take refuge in foreign 
countries, and write against me." 

M. de la Croix suggested that if he were released there 
were persons willing to be held responsible for his good 
behavior. This remark, after six more months of delays, 
deceptions, and disappointments, facilitated the desired end. 
The result was finally due to the exertions of Madame 
Necker, who refused to divulge to any one how the order 
for Latude's release was obtained. 

In sending the good news to Madame Legros, Madame 
Necker wrote as follows : — 

" The individual through whose powerful influence I have so 
long and ardently endeavored to attain the object of our 
mutual solicitude is in some measure apprehensive of the 
consequences. We fear lest the future conduct of owe proie'ge, 
excited by the remembrance of his wrongs, should lead him 
into actions which might cause us to repent. I rely on your 
prudence and management in a matter which really includes the 
happiness of my life, for, from reasons exclusively personal, 
I should suffer cruelly if M. de Latude were to excite any just 
cause of complaint against him after the steps I have taken 
in his favor and the responsibility I have incurred. Since you 
have judged it proper to acquaint him with my name, and 
he has expressed himself fully sensible of the interest I have 
evinced, I entreat you to require from him, as the only token 
of his gratitude I shall ever have occasion to exact, his full and 
unqualified forgiveness of the many injuries he has sustained, 
and a profound silence on the subject of his enemies. This 
is the only course by which he can expect happiness, and it is 



I02 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION'. 

absolutely essential to my tranquillity that he should adopt it. 
I leave this important matter entirely in your hands, madame, 
in the fullest confidence, and relying on the sentiments of esteem 
and attachment with which you have inspired me." 

But the pardon was accompanied with a most distasteful 
condition : Latude was to be exiled to Montagnac, there 
to reside under the surveillance of the police. Madame 
Legros earnestly represented that, if separated from herself 
and her husband by a distance of two hundred leagues, 
they could not possibly watch over him as they had pledged 
themselves to do, " and prevent the ebullitions of temper or 
the natural dictates of long-suppressed indignation." 

At last she obtained the necessary papers permitting 
Latude to reside in Paris, on condition of never appearing 
in the coffee-houses, or on the public walks, or in any place 
of public amusement. 

March 22, 1784, Latude quitted his prison. He accom- 
panied his good friends to their humble dwelling, where 
a chamber had been prepared for him. He gazed around 
him with the rapture of a child, and the ordinary comforts 
of life seemed luxuries beyond his imagination. 

Soon came the kind anonymous lady who had assisted 
Madame Necker. On quitting Latude she left him a purse 
of gold and a letter. The latter was full of kindness and 
good sense, and reiterated the wise counsels before given 
him. 

By degrees a small income was secured by private sub- 
scription to enable Madame Legros and her husband to 
support themselves and the new member of their household. 
It amounted to about four hundred and fifty dollars. The 
Monthyon prize for 1784 (that is, the prize given to the 
poor French person who in the course of the year has 
performed the most virtuous action) was unanimously 
awarded by the Academy to Madame Legros, but her 
receiving it was opposed by the king's ministers. 

At the taking of the Bastille in 1789, Latude was in Paris. 
He does not seem to have been among the attacking party, 




MADAME NECKER. 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 1 03 

but the next day he was carried over the castle in triumph, 
and encouraged to take possession of the reUcs of his escape 
and the papers relating to his captivity. 

In 1790 he published his autobiography, and in the year 
following brought suit for damages against the heirs of 
Madame de Pompadour. Pie succeeded in obtaining a 
verdict, but probably did not reap much benefit from his 
success, as he died a poor man in 1805, at the advanced 
age of eighty-two, after having gone through tortures and 
privations enough, one would think, to have prematurely 
destroyed a frame of iron. 

As we know, the Revolution began in May, 1789, with the 
meeting of the States-General. In this body the Commons, 
soon becoming supreme, formed what is called in history 
the Constituent Assembly; that is, an assembly to make 
a constitution. While these things went on at Versailles, 
Paris was in a ferment, and the ferment was spreading 
to provincial towns. On Sunday, July 12, excitement was 
rising to fever heat. Some of the agitators were arrested 
and imprisoned, but to imprison one was to raise up others. 
The Palais Royal, with its gardens and arcades under the 
very windows of the Due d'Orle'ans, rang with inflammatory 
oratory. " To arms ! " was the cry But the populace had 
no arms. Arms were even wanting to the National Guard. 
The mob broke open prisons ; they broke open the arsenal ; 
they plundered the King's Garde Meuble, — the depository 
of curious things belonging to the crown. In it they found 
two little silver-mounted cannon, a present to Louis XIV. 
from the King of Siam. A rumor rose that arms were 
concealed at the Invalides, and thither the mob marched 
on Monday, July 13, at five in the morning. Old M. de 
Sorabreuil, governor of the Invalides, had had twenty men 
at work all night unscrewing the locks of the muskets in his 
care, amounting to twenty-eight thousand. But in six hours 
they had only unscrewed twenty locks, their sympathies 
being with the populace. The mob broke in and seized 
the muskets, and then from twenty-eight thousand armed 
men the cry arose, " To the Bastille ! " One rather won- 



104 "^^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

ders why the Bastille was the object of attack; no men 
of obscure birth were commonly imprisoned there. It was 
garrisoned only by eighty-two old Invalides and thirty-two 
young Swiss soldiers. However, it had cannon and ammuni- 
tion ; its guns could fire upon Paris, and it was a sort of 
landmark of the Old Regime. Its destruction would be 
an object lesson to tyranny. 

Old M. de Launay, its governor, had made what prepara- 
tions he could, but he had only one day's provisions. His 
walls were nine feet thick ; he had a moat and two d)-aw- 
bridges. He had also had missiles of all kinds piled on the 
battlements, paving-stones, old iron, etc., and cannon in every 
embrasure. Above all, he had a powder magazine, and 
professed his intention of blowing up the place, the garrison, 
and himself rather than surrender. But what were a hun- 
dred and thirty-four men against a hundred thousand ? 

The Invalides fired a cannon, and killed some of the 
crowd. Then the rage of the assailants rose to fury. The 
King of Siam's cannon were impotent to reply, but the fire 
brigade was called out, and attempted to squirt water into 
the touch-holes of the cannon. The first gun had been fired 
at I P.M. ; the garrison fought on till five. The Invalides, 
shot down whenever they showed themselves, grew disheart- 
ened. They reversed their muskets. They pinned some 
napkins together, and showed a white flag ; while the Swiss 
put out a paper with an offer to surrender, their terms 
being, — Pardon to all. 

Some attempt was made to march the garrison as prisoners 
to the Hotel de Ville ; but M. de Launay was torn in pieces 
before he could be got there, and his queue was borne aloft 
as a trophy, the sole remnant of his massacre. The Gardes 
Frangaises, however, trained soldiers, interfered, and, with a 
few exceptions, saved the lives of the rest. The Bastille was 
levelled to the ground. A column to Liberty now stands 
where it once stood. " Its secrets came to view," says Car- 
lyle, " and many a buried despair at last found voice. Read 
this fragment of an old letter : ' If for my consolation Mon- 
seigneur would grant me, for the sake of God and the most 



IMPRISONMENTS AND ESCAPES OF LA TUBE. 105 

Blessed Trinity, that I could have news of my dear wife, were 
it only her name on a card to show that she is ahve, it would 
be the greatest consolation I could receive, and I should ever 
bless the goodness of Monseigneur.' — Poor prisoner, who 
namest thyself Quinet-D^may, and hast no other history ! 
It was fifty years before the fall of the Bastille that thine 
aching heart put these words on paper, to be at length heard 
and long heard in the hearts of men ! " 

In the Bastille at the time of its capture there were found 
seventeen prisoners. The list, obtained by a foreigner who 
was present, is preserved in the Imperial Library of St. 
Petersburg. 

Twelve of these persons were counterfeiters and forgers, 
among whom was one officer of rank, Jacques Luc Pillotte 
de la Barohere. 

The remaining five were : — 

Jacques de la Douai, a spy of M. Lenoir, employed to 
report on men of letters. He had entered into an agreement 
with a foreign bookseller to import interdicted books on joint 
account. An accompHce betrayed him. 

Henriette Sando, arrested under the false name of 
Comtesse de St, Anselme. A dressmaker, imprisoned for 
bringing into France a proscribed pamphlet. 

Anne Gedeon de Lafitte Marquis de Pelleport, author 
of many pamphlets obnoxious to the government. He ex- 
erted himself to save the life of M. de Launay after the 
taking of the Bastille. 

Jean Jacques Rainville, arrested for being the owner of 
a package of books entitled, A7i i-edadeur du petit Almanack 
des grands honinies. 

De Whit, arrested in 1782. No one ever knew who he 
was, nor what he was imprisoned for. He had been at first 
confined at Vincennes with the Marquis de Sada, who was 
subsequently sent to Charenton. De Whit had lost his 
reason, and could give no account of himself. Some 
thought him a Comte de Lorges. He was consigned to 
Charenton. 



I06 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The key of the Bastille was forwarded by Lafayette to 
General Washington. It now hangs in a glass case in the 
hall at Mount Vernon. 

The Bicetre continued to be a prison until after the mas- 
sacres of September, 1 793. It was then besieged by a fero- 
cious mob. The prisoners were all liberated and fought side 
by side with their jailers, though they had no arms but iron 
bars torn from their windows, and their broken fetters. At 
last they were overpowered by numbers, and then com- 
menced a general massacre. In vain Petion exerted himself 
to stop the carnage. When all was over it was said that 
six thousand dead bodies lay within the precincts of the 
prison. There were no political prisoners in the Bicetre 
at that period, and nothing but a thirst for blood could 
have prompted the massacre. 

Vincennes is still used as a military prison. 



CHAPTER 11. 

A peasant's view of the revolution.! 

■jV /f ANY persons have taken upon themselves to write the 
^^^ history of the great Revolution made by the laboring 
classes and the bourgeoisie against the nobles in 1789. These 
writers have been men of education, men of talent, who 
looked on things from a point of view that was not that of 
the people. I am an old peasant myself, and I shall speak 
only of what concerned the peasantry. A man's chief busi- 
ness is to look after what concerns himself What a man has 
seen with his own eyes he knows about. He may as well 
turn it to others' advantage. 

You must know, then, that before the Revolution the lord- 
ship and jurisdiction of Phalsbourg in Lorraine, in which I 
lived, contained five villages. Two of these were free villages ; 
but the inhabitants of the other three — men and women — 
were serfs, and could not leave the limits of their seigtieurie 
without their magist|-ate's permission. 

This magistrate — the prevot — administered justice in 
Phalsbourg in a sort of public building ; he had jurisdiction 
over all persons and their property ; he bore the sword of 
justice ; and he had even the right to hang any man whom 
he thought proper. The building where our maire now has 
his office, and where the National Guard now has its head- 

1 From Messrs. Erckmann and Chatrian's Memoires d'un Paysan, 
which I think has never been translated. The authors took their nar- 
ratives from the lips of peasants; and their books, though in tlie 
form of fiction, may always be relied upon as history. Pere Michel, 
the Paysan, was a native of Lorraine, the most oppressed province 
in France. As is always the case in rural revolutions, the primary 
grievances of the peasants were against the landowner, the tax- 
gatherer, and the money-lender. 



I08 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

quarters, was in my young days the place where they used to 
put prisoners to the torture when they would not confess 
their crimes. The prevofs orderly and the executioner used 
to put them to such horrible pain that we could hear their 
screams in the market-place ; and the next thing that hap- 
pened was that a scaffold was erected on a market day under 
the great elms, and the executioner would hang them, holding 
them down by putting his two feet upon their shoulders. 

At Phalsbourg there was what was called the haut pas- 
sage ; which meant that every wagon-load of manufactured 
goods, whether linen, woollen, or anything else, paid a tax 
at the barrier on entering the jurisdiction. So did every 
wagon-load of lumber, or wood not in the rough, and every 
wagon loaded with expensive luxuries, velvets, silks, or fine 
linen. A pack-horse paid twelve francs ; a basket on a 
pedler's arm paid three francs ; a fish-cart, or a cart with 
farm produce, — butter, eggs, cheese, etc., — paid its tax; and 
salt, wheat, barley, iron, all had to pay, too. A cow, an ox, 
a calf, a pig, or a sheep had to pay, sometimes very heavily ; 
so that the inhabitants of Phalsbourg and its surrounding 
villages could neither eat, drink, nor clothe themselves with- 
out paying a round sum in taxes to the Duke of Lorraine. 

Besides this there was the gabelle, or salt tax, and a law 
which obliged all householders, lodging-house keepers, or 
tavern-keepers to pay to his Highness six pots of wine or 
beer for every cask of those Hquors that they sold. The 
duke likewise had his right to a percentage upon every sale 
of landed property ; and all grain sold in the market-place 
paid an additional tax to him. 

There were municipal taxes levied upon every booth 
erected at the three fairs held yearly in Phalsbourg ; and 
his Highness had the right to pasture his sheep and cattle 
wherever he pleased. He could cut wood in any man's 
wood-land, and claimed a share in all the gains of the fullers 
and the weavers. 

Of the great tithes, two thirds went to the duke, and one 
only to the clergy. The tithe on wheat belonged only to the 
Church ; but his Highness contrived mostly to get hold of it. 



A PEASANT'S VIEW OF THE REVOLUTION. 1 09 

because he cared more for his own pocket than he did for 
religion. 

The town of Phalsbourg in my boyhood was Httle Hke 
what you may see to-day. Not a house in it was painted ; 
all had very small doors and windows set deep in the 
masonry, so that the rooms where our tailors and weavers 
carried on their work were always in semi-darkness. 

The soldiers of the garrison, with their big cocked hats 
and their frayed white greatcoats down to their heels, were 
about the poorest of us all. They were furnished but one 
meal a day by the government. The innkeepers and keep- 
ers of cook-shops who had to supply their other food used 
to beg scraps from door to door for the poor devils. This 
continued until within a few years of the Revolution. 

Our women were worn and haggard. A gown passed 
down from grandmother to granddaughter, and men wore 
the sabots of their fathers' fathers. 

There were no pavements in the streets of Phalsbourg, 
no street-lamps in the darkness. The window-panes were 
very small ; many had been stuffed with rags and paper for 
twenty years. 

Through all the poverty in our streets the prdvot would 
stalk in his black cap, and mount the steps up to the mairie ; 
young officers (all noble, for no man could be an officer in 
those days without his quarterings) would lounge about in 
little three-cornered hats and white uniforms, with their swords 
at their sides ; Capuchin friars would pass through our streets 
with dirty long beards, serge robes, no shirts, and red noses, 
going — troops of them — up to their convent, turned into 
the town schoolhouse at the present day. ... I see it all in 
my mind's eye as if it were but yesterday ; and I say to my- 
self, " What a blessing for all of us that the Revolution ever 
took place, — but most of all has it been a blessing to the 
peasantry ! " 

For if poverty was great in the city, it was worse than you 
can imagine in the country. In the first place, all the dues 
and taxes paid by the burgher were paid by the peasant as 
well ; and the peasants had other exactions to suffer besides. 



no THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

In every village of Lorraine, either the seigneur or the monks 
owned a farm. All the best land was included in these 
farms ; poor people had nothing to cultivate but indifferent 
soil. Nor could they even plant on their own land what 
they pleased. Meadows had to remain meadows ; ploughed 
lands must be ploughed over again. If the peasant had 
been allowed to put his wheat-field down in grass, the clergy 
would have lost their tithe of grain ; if he had turned his 
pasture lot into a field of wheat, he would have diminished 
the seigtieur's right of pasturage. His land was under the 
obligation of supporting fruit trees which belonged to the 
convent or the seigneur, who sold the fruit every year. 
The farmer had no right to cut down these trees, and if 
they died he was expected to plant others in their stead. 
The shade they made, the trampling of the crops when the 
fruit was gathered, the impediments they put in the way of 
ploughing, were all very hurtful to the small proprietor. 

Then, too, the nobles had the right to hunt over the lands 
of their peasantry, to gallop over the peasant's crops, to 
ravage his fields ; and the peasant who killed one partridge 
or one hare even, on his own land, was in danger of the 
galleys. 

The seigneur and the monastery had also special rights of 
pasturage ; that is to say, their flocks might go out to graze 
on waste lands an hour earlier than those of the people in 
the village. The cows and sheep of the peasants, therefore, 
only got their leavings. 

Again, the farm of the seigneur or the monastery had the 
right to maintain pigeons. These pigeons flocked over the 
fields. The peasant had to sow twice as much seed as he 
need otherwise have done, if he hoped for any harvest. 

Furthermore, every head of a family had to pay his lord 
every year fifteen measures of oats, ten fowls, and twenty- 
four eggs. He also owed him three days' labor for himself, 
three for each of his sons, three for each laborer he hired, 
and three for each horse or cart. He was bound to mow 
for him his grounds around the chateau, to make his hay 
and carry it to the barn at the first stroke of the great 



A FEASANT'S VIEW OF THE REVOLUTION. \\\ 

chateau bell, or else he had to pay three sous fine for each 
time he failed in doing so. He was bound to haul all stones 
or wood needed to keep the chateau in repair. The lord 
was expected to give him only a meal of bread and garhc 
each day he worked for him. 

This is what is meant by la corvee, — a word that has now 
passed into the French language to express what is intoler- 
able labor. 

If I were to go on to tell you how the seigneur had his 
oven, where all bread had to be baked, and his press, where 
all his peasants had to make their wine, and pay him for the 
use of them ; if I were further to tell you how the execu- 
tioner had a right to the hide of every beast that died of 
itself; and were. I to describe all the troubles and exactions 
attendant on the collection of these rights, and the tithes, 
and so forth and so on, I should never have done. There 
was a poll tax besides, and a tax on furniture. 

After Lorraine was united to France, the king claimed 
the twelfth part of all produce for the expenses of his gov- 
ernment ; but he claimed it from the lands of the peasants 
alone, — the lands of the nobles and the clergy paid no 
taxes. Then the monopoly of salt and of tobacco was in the 
hands of " farmers," and the price was made excessive to 
the people ; and there was the gabelk, or the salt tax, which 
was peculiarly oppressive. 

All this might have been endured had the seigneurs and 
the abbes and the priors spent any of the money they 
received from us in cutting canals, draining the marshes, 
improving the roads, building schoolhouses, or doing any- 
thing else for the public good. But when we saw such a man 
as the Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan, a high dignitary of 
the Church, leading the life he did at Saverne, making a 
mock of honest men, allowing his lackeys to beat poor people 
on the highway to make them get out of the way of his car- 
riage ; or when we saw the noble gardens, the vast pleasure- 
grounds, the statues, and the fountains, created by our nobles 
at their country seats, in imitation of Versailles, it seemed 
enough to break our hearts, for all the wealth expended on 



1 1 2 THE FRENCH RE VOL UTION. 

such luxuries came from our toil, and the whole system was 
supported by the military service of peasants' sons. 

When these men once enlisted in a regiment, they forgot 
the sorrows of their village. They forgot their own mothers 
and sisters ; they recognized no ties but those that bound 
them to their officers, — nobles who had bought them, and 
at whose orders they would have massacred every living soul 
in their own village, saying that it was for the honor of the 
flag, — pour rhonneur du drapeau. And yet not one of these 
men could ever rise from the ranks and become an ofificer ! 
The born serf could never wear an epaulette. When a man 
lost a limb in the service or was otherwise disabled, all he got 
was a permit to go and beg through the country. The smart 
ones would lounge round the tavern doors and do their best 
to enlist drunken men, and so themselves secure the bounty ; 
the more reckless and adventurous took to highway robbery. 
Gendarmes had to be sent against them. Sometimes two or 
three companies were sent. I saw a dozen robbers hung on 
one day at Phalsbourg ; nearly all of them were old soldiers 
licensed to beg after the Seven Years' War. They had lost 
the skill to labor, they had not a farthing of pension, and 
were all arrested and condemned for robbing a roadside tav- 
ern near Saverne. So now you understand what was meant 
by the Old Regime. The nobles and the convents had all, 
and the laboring people had fiothing. 

Things are all altered now, thank Heaven ! The peasants 
have their share of the good things of this world, and of 
course I too have my little portion. Ever3'body around 
here knows Pere Michel's farm, his beautiful Swiss cows the 
color of cafe au lait, and his six yoke of work-oxen. 

I have no right to complain. The Revolution has done 
much for 7ne. My grandson Jacques is in Paris, at the Ecole 
Polytechnique. He is in the first class there. My grand- 
daughters are well married. My namesake, my youngest 
and . favorite grandchild, talks of being a doctor. All this I 
owe to the Revolution. Had I been a grandfather before 
1789, I should have had nothing. I should have labored all 
my life for the seigneur and the monastery. As I sit here in 



A PEASANT'S VIEW OF THE REVOLUTION. 113 

my big armchair, with my old dog at my feet, and glance 
out at my apple-trees covered with white blossoms, or listen 
to the cheerful sounds from my own farm-yard, I think of the 
wretched cabin where my poor father and mother lived, and 
my brothers and sisters in 1780, with its four bare crumbling 
walls, its windows stuffed with straw, its thatch rotted by rain 
and snow, — a kind of black mouldy lair, where we were all 
stifled in the smoke ; where we shivered with cold and hun- 
ger. And when I think how my poor parents toiled in- 
cessantly just to give us a few beans to keep the life in us ; 
when I remember how ragged we were, how haggard, and 
how care-worn, — 1 shudder ; and when I am alone tears 
come into my eyes. 

No, indeed ! you can't make me believe that poor peo- 
ple were happy before the Revolution. I recollect what 
people call " the good old times," and yet in those days old 
men talked to us of times a great deal worse, — that time of 
the Thirty Years' War, when peasants were strung up to the 
trees like fruit ; and after war came pestilence, till you might 
travel leagues without seeing a single living soul. 

Imagine in those days a poor laborer like my father with 
a wife and six children, without a sou, without a foot of 
land, without a goat, without a fowl, with nothing but the 
toil of his hands on which to live. There was no hope any- 
where for him, or for his children. No better fate than his 
was open to his family ; it was the natural order of things. 
Some people came into the world nobles, and had a right to 
everything ; others were born serfs, and must expect to re- 
main in poverty from generation to generation. 

Yet, in spite of these things, when the spring came, and the 
sun shone into our cabin after the long dark months ; when it 
showed us the cobwebs between the beams, the little hearth 
in the corner, and the ladder to the loft ; when we grew 
warm, and crickets sang without, and all the trees grew green, 
— we felt it, after all, to be a pleasant thing to be alive. We 
children lay on our backs upon the grass clasping our bare 
feet in our little hands ; we whistled, we laughed, and looked 
up in the sky, or tumbled in the dust, and were happy. 

8 



1 1 4 THE FRENCH RE VOL UTION. 

But the worst trouble of all was that peasants, almost with- 
out exception, were in debt to some money-lender. I recol- 
lect, as soon as I can remember anything, hearing my father 
say when he had sold some of his baskets, or a dozen or two 
of his brooms : " Here is the money for salt, and here for 
beans and for .rice, but I have not a sou over. Oh^ mon 
Dieu ! mon Dieu I I had hoped to have a little over to 
go to Monsieur Robin ! " ... 

What my father and mother suffered from this debt can- 
not be described. They lay awake to worry over it ; the 
thoughlr>of it never left them ; they grew old under the bur- 
den of it. The debt had been contracted to buy a goat. 
The goat had died. It had been paid for ten times over in 
interest, but the principal had never been repaid. Their 
only hope lay in the thought that if one of their sons drew a 
blank in the conscription, they might sell him for a substi- 
tute. People must indeed have been poverty-stricken be- 
fore they could find hope in the sale of their sons. We boys 
thought it only natural that our father and mother should sell 
us. We always considered ourselves as belonging to them, 
like cattle. 

In those days, when I had to run home alone on dark 
nights after staying too long at my uncle's, where I was em- 
ployed as a farm boy in his stable, I used to carry with me a 
lighted torch to scare the wolves ; and sometimes, long 
after I had crept into my bed of leaves in the loft, beside my 
brothers, I would hear sounds in the distance, by which I 
knew that wolves were howling round some stable, jumping 
up eight or ten feet to get in at some opening, and falling 
bacTc upon the snow. Then there would be some short, sharp 
yelps, and then the whole pack would rush down the village 
street, like a whirlwind. They had seized some poor watch- 
dog, and were carrying him off to the rocks to tear him in 
pieces. 

One afternoon I found my uncle with a basket before him 
containing roots cut into small pieces. A pedler, who was 
one of his friends, had brought them to him from beyond the 
Rhine, saying that they came out of Hanover, that they 



A PEASANT'S VIEW OF THE REVOLUTION; 115 

would produce plants so good to eat and in such great quan- 
tities that our people would have plenty of food all the year 
round. He recommended us to plant them, saying that if 
they came into use there would be no more famine in the 
land, and that they would be a veritable blessing to every 
one. 

These were potatoes. There was great opposition to them 
at first in our country. They came from Hanover; they 
were heretic roots. It was reported that they produced lep- 
rosy; and for one season nobody would buy them or eat 
them. But, happily for us, before the time for planting them 
the next year, a gazette reached us which said that a good 
fellow, one Parmentier, had planted some of these roots in 
the neighborhood of Paris, that he had sent some to the 
king, who had eaten of them ; and then everybody wanted to 
plant potatoes, in consequence of which all that my uncle had 
on hand sold very profitably.^ 

1 The extract I have given shows the working of the feudal system 
in the days of its decay. The French Revolution swept it utterly 
away, not only in France, but all over Europe. We think so much of 
the horrors and excesses of the Revolution run to riot, cruelty, and 
madness, that we forget what it seemed to men in its early stages, 
and what we ourselves would have thought of it had we never known 
its sequel. — E. W. L. 



CHAPTER III. 

PARIS IN 1787.^ 

TN the month of May, 1787, three young men ol Nancy, 
-*- then the capital of the province of Lorraine, set out 
upon a journey. They were to visit Paris, and afterwards 
descend the Seine to Havre. Their objects were to see the 
world and to purchase seeds and agricultural implements ; 
for they belonged to the middle class, and had no social 
pretensions or ambitions. They were frugal, although bent 
on pleasure ; and one of them wrote a journal, in which he 
recorded their observations and their joint stock of experi- 
ences, for the benefit of their respective families. Two years 
later (although no word in the journal shows that change or 
trouble was at hand) all France was ablaze with revolution. 
The record of their journey, having served its purpose, lay 
forgotten in the drawer of an old writing-desk, until recently 
a descendant of the writer drew it from its hiding-place. He 
gave it to the world through the " Literary Supplement of 
Figaro," as an interesting picture of a Paris very different 
from the Paris of the Third Republic or the Second Empire. 
The style of the young man's narrative is clear, straight-for- 
ward, and unsensational. Its language differs about as much 
from the French of modern newspapers and novels as the 
Paris it describes does from the heaven of the good Ameri- 
can, in the appearance of its streets and the every-day ideas 
which shaped its manners. 

Our three young men, Thiry, Jacquinot, and Cognet (their 
historian) left Nancy by diligence, May 7, 1787. Their 
fellow-passengers were an Englishman, and a friar of the 

' Contributed to " Appleton's Journal," December, 18S0, by Mrs. 
E. W. Latimer. 



PARIS IN 1787. 1 1 7 

order of St. Francis. The frikr they found a bore, while the 
Englishman was intelligent and amusing. Their first stage 
was to Ligny, which they reached in a pouring rain. There 
they supped upon delicate trout, and went to bed for about 
three hours. Anxious, however^ to get as much as possible 
out of their journey, they got out of bed at 3 a. m. to walk 
around the town of Ligny, where they found wide streets and 
handsome houses. We judge that at that time ideas of the 
seclusion of women regulated domestic architecture, for they 
note with surprise that one of the principal of these houses 
"had windows looking on the street." At Bar, Jacquinot 
paid a visit to the good-looking housekeeper of a certain 
M. Arnoud, who had a small place under government, but 
the rule of the establishment seems to have been, " No 
followers allowed," and the visit was resented as an intrusion 
by her master. 

At St. Didier, the next stage of their journey, they got 
an excellent dinner for twenty-five sous each. At Vitry they 
changed horses, and were struck by the free and easy 
manners of its pretty women, some of whom stood at their 
windows to watch them as they waited beside the diligence ; 
and one lady, of high consideration, as they heard, actually 
waved her hand to them, as their carriage rolled away. 
With Chalons they were not well pleased : their supper was 
dear and bad ; the women were ill dressed, and took no 
interest in travellers. " They had no notion how to put 
their clothes on," says our observant traveller. " They 
wore full-dress chignons with morning deshabille." 

At Chalons they left the diligence, and hired a cabriolet. 
The weather was very bad, and they were greatly indebted 
to their landlady, who laid some old cloths over the frame 
of their vehicle. At Se'zanne they passed the night with an 
uncle of Jacquinot, who took them to see "The Prodigal 
Son " performed by ragged actors in a barn, the stage being 
separated only by coarse curtains from a stable full of 
horses. 

From Sezanne they went forward on foot, hoping for good 
quarters at a certain abbey on their route, to the prior of 



Il8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

which Jacquinot's uncle had given them a letter of recom- 
mendation. The prior, however, by no means honored the 
draft on his hospitality. At Meaux they insisted on supping 
on mackerel, the first salt sea fish they had ever tasted, but 
the mackerel having un leger goiit de decomposition, Jacqui- 
not alone could stomach them. 

On the 15th of May, a week after they left Nancy, they 
found themselves at 8 a. m. before the gates of Paris. They 
breakfasted in a guinguette, or canvas booth, and then sought 
a fellow-countryman from Lorraine who had engaged three 
bedrooms for them in the Rue Montmartre, opposite the 
courtyard of the diligence. Their trunk (they travelled 
with light luggage) had arrived before them ; and having 
changed their clothes and had their heads dressed, they 
proceeded to the Palais Royal. " The beauty of the build- 
ings," says Cognet, " the regularity and elegance of the 
arcades, and the magnificence of the shops hardly impressed 
us more than the vast number of people who flocked there 
at midday. It is the rendezvous of strangers, idlers, and the 
most noted courtesans in the capital, so beautifully dressed 
that one might have mistaken them for court ladies." 

At three o'clock they went to dine with a friend at Hue's 
restaurant in the Passage des Petits Peres, where they had 
excellent entertainment for thirty-three sous apiece. The 
dining-hall was large, and could seat from sixty to eighty 
persons at small tables. Then they went forth to walk up 
and down the Rue St. Honore, and to see for themselves 
how well its evil reputation was deserved. They were in- 
formed that it was not respectable for any woman in Paris to 
look out of her windows on the street, and wondered how 
their fair friend at Vitry would have felt could she have 
known what conclusion would be drawn from her behavior 
by a Parisian. 

Returning to the Palais Royal they went to the Beaujolais, 
a Httle theatre much the fashion at that period, where chil- 
dren made gestures on the stage, while others sang behind 
the scenes. They saw three comic operettas at this place, 
and at nine o'clock were out again, and enjoying in the 



PARIS IN 1787. ■ 119 

arcades of the Palais Royal " the coup d^ceil offered by the 
brilliant light, not only from street lamps hung between each 
arcade, but from the number of lamps and candles in the 
shops, which illuminated the richness of the goods displayed, 
in contrast with the dark walks under the chestnut-trees." 

The next day, the first thing they saw on going out, at ten 
A.M., was a great crowd of people in the Rue Neuve des 
Capucines, waiting with impatience for the drawing of the 
royal lottery. " That ceremony took place," says Cognet, 
" with all the pomp and publicity calculated to tranquillize an 
anxious public. The lieutenant-general of police, whose 
rank is considered equal to that of a minister, stood on a 
scaffolding surrounded by a group of officers. On the same 
scaffolding was the wheel of fortune, standing beside which 
was a child with a fillet over his eyes. The wheel turned, 
a little door opened, the child put forth his hand, took up a 
paper lying in the opening, and gave it to the lieutenant- 
general of police, who opened it, with his hands held up 
over his head, before the crowd. The number, then pro- 
claimed aloud, was exhibited on a frame in large figures to 
the people. When all the numbers were drawn, the noise 
was very great. The crowd dispersed, most of them cursing 
their ill luck, but all ready to test it again upon the next 
occasion." 

Thence our young men turned into the Place Vendome, 
one side of which was then occupied by the church and con- 
vent of the Capuchins. The convent gardens extended at 
that time to the garden of the Tuileries, from which they 
were separated by a narrow space, now the Rue de Rivoli. 
To this place four years later the National Assembly removed 
when the court was forced to leave Versailles and occupy 
the Tuileries ; but no shadow of such coming events hung 
over the minds of the young sight-seers as they gazed at the 
equestrian statue of Louis XIV., then occupying the centre 
of the square, or stood inside the convent church and won- 
dered at the simplicity of the monument to Madame 
de Pompadour. 

The Boulevard was to Paris in that day what the Bois de 



I20 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Boulogne and the Champs Elysees are in ours. This Bou- 
levard (for they then spoke of it in the singular) was very 
different from the Boulevards as we know them, the trees that 
were their glory then having been nearly all cut down during 
successive revolutions. " The Boulevard," says our author- 
ity, "consists of two grand avenues of four rows of trees 
each, under which people walk on foot, while in the middle 
is a wide chaussee intended for carriages. In dry weather 
this road is watered twice a day. On fete days, if there is 
no public divertissement to celebrate the occasion, the Bou- 
levard is the rendezvous of all Paris. There are generally 
four lines of carriages abreast for more than two leagues. 
The shabby fiacre rumbles alongside of the most brilliant 
equipages. Along this drive are the handsomest houses in 
Paris, and, besides two theatres, there are shows and curiosi- 
ties of all kinds shown very cheaply under the trees. There 
are also three or four cafes, beautifully fitted up, where, from 
2 p. M. to T I, a band plays without intermission." 

The opera-house of that day excited the admiration of our 
provincials. It had been built in seventy-five days. It was 
entirely of wood, and its builders had not been willing to 
guarantee it for more than five years. Those years had passed, 
and it was still in perfect order. Its fagade was on the Bou- 
levard St. Martin. Its curtain was de toute beaute. It re- 
represented Parnassus, Apollo crowning the Arts, and the 
Graces standing by him. The perfection of the scenery, 
and the mechanical appliances for moving it, the vastness of 
the auditorium, and the brilliancy of the ballet, — especially 
the performance of the celebrated Mademoiselle Guimard, — 
delighted our young men even more than the singing. 

They went next day to see the Halles, and were struck by 
the general activity that prevailed in them, and by the bru- 
tality and vile language of those men and women who so 
soon after were to become the greatest power for evil in 
the world. 

The garden of the Tuileries (or Thuileries, as they write it) 
was much as we have known it in our own day, but the pal- 
ace was unoccupied and dilapidated. "The trees are of 



PARIS IN 17S7. 121 

prodigious size, and their branches meet together, forming 
an impenetrable shade. This spot is the resort of respect- 
able bou7'geoises, and of such ladies of quality as, having no 
carriages, wish to take the air without being elbowed by dis- 
reputable women. They are brought to the gates in sedan 
chairs, which are left outside with their porters. All this is 
in excellent taste, and one feels on entering the garden that 
it is the refuge of virtue. When we quitted the Tuileries, 
we crossed a desert spot called the Champs Elys^es, and 
soon found ourselves inside the park of the celebrated M. 
Beaujon." 

That day they had a bad dinner for thirty-six sous apiece, 
and complain that in fashionable places proprietors and 
waiters show much less regard to guests out of the provinces 
than to seigneurs of the capital. "To get a good dinner at 
these places, one has either to show a red heel, or to drive 
up in an equipage that stamps you as one concerned in gov- 
ernment finance, the jingling of money being as good as a 
title to those who preside there." 

They were struck by the activity prevailing on the quays 
on both sides of the Seine. These were crowded with all 
sorts of merchandise and provisions, and each quay was 
called after the product to which it was especially devoted. 

There was an Italian opera in those days in Paris, but the 
performers sang in French. The opera-house was situated 
on a wide open space surrounded by buildings in the course 
of construction. They admired the skill of the police in 
keeping order among the fashionable carriages, and they 
there saw a great many seigneurs and grandes dames. 

The Bois de Boulogne is described as a park nearly a 
league from Paris, used by the Parisians for picnics upon 
fete days. At that time one of the curiosities of the Bois 
was a ruined palace called Madrid, built by Francois I. on his 
return from captivity. It had as many windows as there were 
days in the year, and the exterior had been covered with 
porcelain tiles, but the whole was going to decay. Not so 
the country house of the Comte dArtois in the same neigh- 
borhood, whose English gardens, winding walks, and falling 



122 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

waters are admirably described as imitant penibUment la 
nature. 

The Jardin Mabille of that day was called " Wauxhall," and 
was attended by our young men with but little edification ; 
the orgy, however, broke up in time to send them to bed by 
eleven o'clock. 

The Cathedral of St. Denis was then in all its glory. 
'' Cest la" exclaims our young philosopher, in words less 
trite before the Revolution than they are to-day, " le terme 
de la puissance de nos roisP The treasure-room contained 
reliquaries and chalices of inestimable value. There, too, 
were the crowns used at the coronation of French sovereigns, 
the sword of Charlemagne and his crown and sceptre. But 
the most wonderful thing of all was a chalice carved out of 
a single agate, the work of one man's lifetime, which had 
been left by will to the cathedral by the Abb^ Sugger. There, 
too, they saw the royal mantle of purple velvet spangled with 
gold fleurs de lis, and lined with ermine. It weighed a hun- 
dred and eighty pounds. It was the custom of the place 
always to keep in the chancel, lying under a magnificent 
canopy, the coffin that contained the body of the last king 
during the reign of his successor. Louis XV. died of small- 
pox, and his body, being unfit to embalm, was buried, A 
catafalque, however, covered an empty coffin, and lights 
burned round it night and day. They observed with satis- 
faction that the body of Turenne " lay honored among 
those of kings ; " they did not know that six years later, 
when the dead bodies of the kings would be dragged from 
their resting-place, his alone would be spared that ignominy. 

The mania for building and decorating country places was 
the prevailing folly of that period. Well might Waller's 
warning to Englishmen a century back have been applied 
to courtiers bred in the school of Louis XIV. and his 
successor : — 

"If you have these whims of apartments and gardens 
Of twice fifty acres, you '11 ne'er see five farthings ; 
And in you will be seen the true gentleman's fate, — 
Ere you 've finished your house you '11 have spent your estate." 



PARIS IN 1787. 



123 



At Neuilly they saw the flower-garden of M. de Saint-James, 
who had squandered four milUons of francs upon his country 
place. Money had been frittered on cockney absurdities 
of all kinds. Grottoes had been lined with fish-bones ; cas- 
cades had been shrouded by glass ; and one grotto was bril- 
liantly lighted by reflections thrown upon yellow glass balls 
recalling the cave with trees of jewelled fruit entered by 
Aladdin. These marvels, and the really beautiful conser- 
vatories and pineries, must have been destroyed during the 
Revolution. 

The friends attended the one hundredth representation of 
Beaumarchais's " Figaro " at the Frangais. The performance 
began at five o'clock, and there was a great struggle to get 
in at the doors. The theatre had seven tiers of boxes, 
crowded by a delighted audience, and the pit had seats, as 
they remarked, and was filled by people of fashion. The 
difficulty of getting out again was great, for before the theatre 
there was a piece of waste ground full of open drains and 
numerous excavations. 

Notre Dame at that period was the richest cathedral in the 
kingdom. Over its entrances were life-size statues of twenty- 
eight kings of France, all afterwards destroyed at the Revo- 
lution. The high altar, soon to be desecrated by a Jille 
de Vopera in the guise of the Goddess of Reason, was of 
porphyry, and the chapels were full of noble statuary and 
precious marbles. 

On the 25th of May Jacquinot came of age, and his com- 
panions celebrated the event by a most sumptuous breakfast, 
costing them two francs and a half apiece. They visited the 
Church of the Maturins, where they saw an altar-cloth that 
Cognet describes as " marvellous, the only thing of the 
kind that exists. Brocatelle de sole d'or et argent y 

The Gobelins was just as we have all seen it, no changes 
in that establishment having been effected by the Revolution. 
They dined outside the barriere for eighteen sous apiece, 
" as well as we could have done within the walls for twice 
that sum," and they spent the afternoon in seeing one 
of the saddest sights that ever disgraced humanity. The 



124 I^HE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Salpetriere was a place of confinement for all kinds of un- 
fortunate women. The establishment in 1787 contained 
seven thousand of them, and was presided over by twelve 
Sisters of the order of Ste. Claire. Among the women of 
loose character they saw Madame de la Motte, the infamous 
heroine of the " Diamond Necklace," who, escaping soon 
after during the Revolution, is said, under the assumed 
name of Comtesse Guacher, to have become partner in the 
evangelization of Russia with Madame de Krudener, the 
friend of the Emperor Alexander. Although classed with 
the Magdalens on the register of the establishment, Madame 
de la Motte had a room to herself, and was not obliged to 
wear their dress, a robe of coarse woollen, fashioned like 
a sack. The young men bribed their guide to let them see 
her. " She has the deportment and manners of a lady 
of quality," says Cognet. " She seemed very much sur- 
prised by our visit ; but as it probably was a change to her, 
she did not resent it, and entered into conversation with us. 
She was dressed like a lady in deshabille, and was busy flut- 
ing something when we entered." 

The other women slept five in a bed. The kitchens were 
neat and commodious. Sev^en coppers made soup for the 
seven thousand women, half an ox to each copper, — which 
seems a miserable allowance. They were all occupied, 
generally with needlework, and among them were several 
women who were there by choice. The hospital and 
nursery departments were likewise visited ; but the Sisters 
with all their care "could not prevent the air of these 
places from being intolerable. The most dreadful sight 
we saw, however," says Cognet, " was that of the poor 
creatures deprived of reason." Some of his details are too 
shocking for repetition. Those liable to fits of fury were 
kept chained in kennels, and an iron barrier cut them off 
from personal communication even with the keepers of the 
establishment. Their lairs were cleaned out twice a day 
with rakes, and their food was thrust in to them. Among 
these wretched creatures was a beautiful young girl, who 
had loved a young nobleman who had betrayed her. " If 



PARIS IN 17S7. 125 

it had not been for the fetters round her beautiful bare 
arms, we could not have beheved that she was subject 
to attacks of violent mania. Her melancholy beseeching 
looks proved that in lucid intervals she realized the horrors 
of her situation." She hid herself in her kennel at their 
approach, but merwards came out, and made gestures 
to Thiry. When they came back she was in a paroxysm of 
despair, and was tearing her flesh and clothes. Many had 
only an old quilt for a covering. 

No traveller could visit Paris without going to Versailles. 
On Whitsunday our young Lorrainers went thither with 
a great crowd. Their first sight was the procession of those 
who wore the grand cordon of St. Louis. All noblemen 
so decorated left the king's apartment at midday, and went 
in procession to the chapel, followed by the princes of the 
blood, tlie queen, her ladies, and the king himself. The 
dauphin, whom the queen held by the hand, was not the 
sufferer of the Temple, but his elder brother, who died two 
years after this Whitsunday, — June 4, 1 789. ^' Our queen's 
features are not perfect," remarks Cognet ; "but she seems 
more beautiful than any lady at court because of the nobility 
of her expression and the splendor of her carriage. Even 
when dressed in very humble garments, it would be easy 
to guess that she was born to a throne. Her great dignity 
does not impair her grace. She has an enchanting smile 
and a peculiar turn of her head. The king's countenance 
shows his great kindliness, and his glance, though it is timid 
{depourvu (Taudace), is full of majesty. The dauphin," 
Cognet also remarks, " is a very pretty boy, but he seems 
sad and sickly. Though hardly five years old, he behaved 
admirably at mass, and only once made a little friendly 
gesture to his cousin, the Due d'Angouleme, when the grand 
cordon was conferred on him." The richness of the court 
costumes amazed the young provincials. The queen and 
the princesses were literally covered with jewels. The Du- 
chesse de Polignac and the Princesse de Lamballe were 
pointed out to them as the queen's intimate friends. All 
present were not required to wear swords, but every one who 



126 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

did so was admitted to the palace on that occasion. " The 
only fault that we could see in the apartments," adds 
Cognet, " was perhaps a too lavish profusion of gold." 

The grand fountains played, and the young men were 
interested in the menagerie, particularly in the rhinoceros. 
One wonders what became of him in the Revolution ! 
" Versailles," says our young writer, — and his observation 
is as true now as it was then, — '"'seems still to be pervaded 
by Louis XIV." The Louvre at that time was in process of 
reconstruction, and the part finished was full of artists' studios 
and workshops of all kinds, granted rent free to persons 
who had influence to secure them. 

On the Sunday after Whitsuntide they left Paris for St. 
Cloud in a flatboat, containing three hundred persons. 
On reaching their destination, where the fountains did not 
play till five o'clock, they made their way on foot across 
country to Versailles, and visited the Trianon. 

At the Petit Trianon, " the queen's plaything," they saw 
her Enghsh garden, her farm, her farm buildings, a ruin, 
a plain, a forest, and a mountain, all artificial, and on a tiny 
scale. " The queen comes here frequently," says her young 
subject, " to get rid of the burthen of her greatness. She 
loves to be alone here for hours at a time. The house 
is in no sense a palace. The walls are covered with straw- 
work, alternating with worsted embroidery ; the floors are 
spread with matting imitating marqiieterie. In the garden 
there are none but wild flowers. There is no etiquette 
observed at the Petit Trianon ; none of the distinctions du 
tabouret prevail there. As we were leaving the bathing 
rooms, we were apprised of the arrival of Marie Antoinette ; 
and as we had not time to escape through the gate, our 
guide hurried us into the dairy. The queen approached, 
accompanied by one of her court ladies ; but she dismissed 
her presently, and came alone directly toward us. She 
wore a simple dress of clear white cambric, a fichu, and 
a head-dress of lace ; and in this quiet dress she seemed 
even more queenly than in the court costume in which we 
had last seen her. Her way of walking is peculiar. She 



PARIS IN 1787. 



127 



glides forward with inexpressible grace, and her head was 
thrown back more proudly when she thought herself alone 
than when she was in the midst of pomp and people. Our 
queen passed close to the place where we were hid, and we 
all three had an impulse to step forth and kneel before her. 
We were divided between the wish that she should see us and 
the fear that she might do so. As soon as her Majesty had 
passed, our guide made us leave the garden. As it was 
four o'clock, we took a carriage which soon brought us to 
St. Cloud." 

At this time the iirst fire department was being organized 
in Paris. One of the sights they went to see was La Sa- 
maritaine, a dilapidated piece of machinery that had been 
constructed for forcing water from the Seine to the Tuileries 
in case of fire. They remarked at the time that the recent 
discovery of fire engines {pompes a feu) would supersede 
this old machine. This prophecy was fulfilled for them 
as they returned home from St. Cloud. As they came 
in sight of the Tuileries, they saw part of the Pavilion de 
Flore on fire ; and while interesting themselves in t\\e pompes, 
which were mounted upon boats in the Seine, Jacquinot was 
pressed into the service, and compelled to work hard for 
eight or ten hours. The Tuileries seems to have been 
always thought particularly liable to conflagration. 

Thiry had been greatly depressed for more than a week 
past, and, declining an expedition to Marly, took to his bed. 
His illness, however, proved to be homesickness. He was 
pining for his family ; and having made up his mind to return 
to Nancy by the next diligence, he grew perfectly well again. 
His companions saw him off, and then went to the beautiful 
country seat of the Prince de Conde (the unfortunate Due 
d'Enghien's grandfather) at Chantilly. The place was extraor- 
dinarily beautiful, and was everywhere decorated with illustra- 
tions of La Fontaine's " Fables " in sculpture. Chantilly they 
thought as charming as Versailles was dull and magnificent. 
Among other things, they saw in the armory the swords of 
Jeanne d'Arc, and of Henri IV. 

On the nth of June they wrote a letter to say that they 



128 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

should soon be home, sent off their trunk by diligence, 
engaged their places for the following week, and spent the 
day in executing commissions. They had some difficulty 
in getting their trunk through the custom-house, which then 
examined every article that left Paris, but this being accom- 
plished they prepared for a fresh jaunt to see the ocean. 

They started on foot through Marly and St. Germain, 
and at Poissy took a flatboat — galiote — on the Seine. 
This vessel had no seats, no cabin, and no protection from 
the weather, so that they suffered terribly from a blazing 
sun, but it was a cheap mode of travelling ; eight hours of 
it cost them each thirty sous. They hired two rough Nor- 
man ponies at Roulle, and rode twenty-one miles on them 
to Rouen, paying another thirty sous apiece for the animals. 
They saw the sights of Rouen, the same as in our own day, 
and continued their journey by flatboats and on hired 
horses to Honfleur, the harbor of which was then full of 
vessels from the Baltic, but it was being rapidly filled up by 
sand. On the 15th they saw Havre and the sea for the first 
time, and bathed in salt water at once. They ate turbot, 
lobster, and various shellfish, and went on board a man o' 
war corvette, and admired the merchant shipping. They 
went to the theatre as a matter of course, and, in short, made 
the most of their one day's stay at Havre. They were very 
much interested in all they saw, but thought Havre a very 
dear city to live in. They had the good taste to admire the 
scenery along the banks of the Seine on their journey back 
to Rouen, and Cognet informs us that at that time the city 
contained a hundred thousand inhabitants. They visited 
the market-place where poor Jeanne d'Arc was burned, 
drank Norman cider, and went to the theatre, where they 
made two in an audience of ten, the manager having quar- 
relled with the public. Partly on foot, and partly in a flat- 
boat, they made their return journey from Rouen to Paris. 
The last stage of their journey, on a wet night, in an intoler- 
able crowd upon the bare deck of the boat, was very uncom- 
fortable. They were interested, however, in an escaped nun 
they had on board, who made no secret of her adventures. • 



PARIS IN 1787. 129 

" She was a girl of no personal charms, who had been put 
into a convent against her will. She got out by climbing up 
some trellis-work beside a wall, until she reached the top, 
when she slipped down into the road. There is little doubt 
she will continue to slip more," adds Cognet, " as she goes 
further." 

They stayed three more days in Paris, and then (June 22) 
in the society of a Jesuit father, ''good company and no 
bigot," a spur-maker and his son, the Sieur Bouthoux, a 
bookseller of Nancy, two Englishmen who could not speak 
French, and a tobacco agent from Luneville, they started 
for Nancy. The journey was uneventful, without any acci- 
dent to the passengers, though the diligence, in going down 
a steep hill without brakes, at one stage ran over its two 
postilions, who were left behind under charge of charitable 
persons, while the Englishmen mounted the horses, and 
carried the diligence through to the next post-town. 

Thiry had come out one stage to meet them. They all 
breakfasted together at Toul, and there the young men took 
leave of their fellow-travellers, for the route of the diligence 
did not lie through Nancy. In a few hours they were safe 
at home, " enjoying," as Cognet concludes, " each of us on 
his own part the pleasure that others felt in our safe return, 
after seven weeks' absence." 



CHAPTER IV. 

COURT LIFE AT VERSAILLES ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 
\_From the pen of a nineteenth-century reporter }'\ 

"PERMIT me, good reader, to borrow the services of 
•^ Asmodeus, and, without being either a philosopher, a 
humorist, or an historian, to take you into Paris — the Paris 
of 1789 — in the character of a modern reporter. 

The first thing that will strike us is the height of the houses, 
the narrowness of the streets, and the dimness of the shops. 
There are fewer gable roofs than I expected, and more vehi- 
cles of various kinds than I had supposed. The buildings 
and monuments that I recognize appear strange to me, be- 
cause of the great difference in their surroundings ; and 
in the streets is a throng noisily, boisterously, brutally gay, 
giving to old Paris an air of activity and movement for which 
I was not prepared. I look steadily at the costumes of the 
crowd. They are not what I expected. I had imagined 
I should see in the streets of Paris personages like the actors 
in comic opera. Not a bit of it ! There are very few bright 
colors worn on the streets, very little velvet, and still less silk. 
Stout blue, brown, and black cloth is worn by the men. 
Workingmen wear trousers, and are dressed like the peasants 
of western France in our own day. Where are the great 
nobles, all embroidered in gold ? A moment ago I caught 
sight of a man dressed in pink silk, but he was a street singer 
in the guise of a marquis. Where are the real marquises? 
Oh, I forgot. They are all at Versailles. We will go to 
Versailles, then, and begin with the court circle. 

When Louis XIV. died, Louis XV., not daring to keep 
up the same state as his majestic great-grandfather, took up 

1 From the " Supplement Litteraire du Figaro," translated by me 
and published Feb. 23, 1889, in " Littell's Living Age." — E. W. L. 



ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 131 

his quarters in the left wing of the chateau, which was divided 
into small suites of apartments ; and in these same small 
apartments lives Louis XVI. His royal spouse prefers the 
Trianon. But we will begin, in our capacity of invisible 
reporter, with Louis himself. 

He was born at Versailles, Aug. 23, 1754; so that he is 
now, in 1789, thirty-five years old. He is very stout, but 
he is also very muscular, and more quick in his movements 
than his people give him credit for. His forehead recedes, 
his nose is short, his chin fat, and his complexion slightly 
florid. His eyes are commonly without much expression, 
but when excited his glance can be stern and severe, ■ — 
which is a great contrast to the usual kindly expression of 
his physiognomy. 

The king has the manners of a gentleman, but not those 
of a prince. His movements are brusque and awkward. 
Physically and morally, his defect is indecision. Like all 
weak men, he has occasionally sudden spurts of violent 
temper. His morals are so pure that his virtues are sneered 
at by his licentious nobles, while they have failed to attract 
the good opinion of his people. He adores his queen, and 
cannot bear to hear her slandered, though sometimes his 
affection seems to turn to bitterness. He can occasionally 
be as jealous as a bourgeois, yet he trusts her in everything. 

One day he said, " M. Turgot and I are the only two 
men in France who really love the people." He does love 
his people, beyond doubt ; but he distrusts them, though 
he has as yet no conception of their latent capacity for 
revolution. At this moment, as we look at him, he is 
going through a terrible struggle with financial and politi- 
cal difficulties. His relief comes when he can give him- 
self up with his whole soul to his much-talked-of labors 
in locksmithing and watch-making. Indeed, there is not 
in all Paris a more skilful workman. His appetite is 
formidable ; we will say more about it by and by. It 
is only when he works like a journeyman and feeds like 
Gargantua that he seems gay ; his soul is ordinarily heavy 
within him. 



132 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

He cannot forget all the cruel little intrigues which have 
already darkened the splendors of his reign, and are indeed 
a sort of prelude to the terrible misfortunes about to fall on 
his family. Such things as the affair of the diamond neck- 
lace, the scandal of the " Marriage of Figaro," played at 
court, the queen taking a principal part herself, in spite of 
his prohibition, the gossip about Marie Antoinette's having 
been married seven years before she became a mother, 
worry and agitate him. He is sad, very sad ; and what is 
now mere anxiety will before long turn to horror. 

Marie Antoinette, born Archduchess of Austria, is now 
thirty-four. Supremely elegant, brought up in the most 
aristocratic court of Europe, she has all the faults and all 
the charms of the aristocracy of the eighteenth century. 
Proud and yet frivolous, jealous of the prerogatives of her 
station and yet impatient of the restraints of etiquette, she 
shocks the nobility by her want of dignity and the bourgeoisie 
by the lightness of her behavior. 

Is she beautiful? Not precisely. But she belongs to that 
class of women who, in the language of our own day, are 
called "captivating." Her profile is aquihne, possibly a 
little too much so ; her eyes are very bright ; her mouth 
charming ; her complexion briUiant ; her manners easy, free, 
and sometimes a shade wanting in queenliness. 

She is a mark for the most rascally insinuations, particu- 
larly on the part of some members of her husband's family. 
An evil motive is imputed to her most innocent fancies ; as, 
for example, that of dressing like a shepherdess when she 
lives in her pretty little cottage at the Trianon. Thousands 
of songs are sung about her in the streets. Some will con- 
tinue celebrated, and need not be here mentioned ; some 
are obscene, and not to be repeated ; but here is one that I 
have never heard before, — nor probably you, reader, — 
which I heard a man humming at Versailles, almost within 
earshot of the Trianon : — 

" La bergere de Trianon, 
Quand on dit oui, ne dit pas non ; 
EUe est sensible, mais volage ; 




LOUIS XVI 



ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 133 

Elle accommode a sa £a9on 
Le bon gar^on, le gros garfon, 
Qui I'osa prendre en mariage." 

" The shepherd maid of Trianon, 
If you say oici, will not say Jton ; 

Tender but changeable, 't is said her 
Arts can manage (how 's not known) 
The good fat fellow on the throne 

Who has dared to wed her." 

If such things are sung within earshot of the court, what am 
I likely to hear in the city ? 

The Comte de Provence, the king's next brother, was born 
in 1755. He has a high forehead, denoting intelligence; 
his eyes are bright and piercing, his mouth scornful, his 
manners easy, but haughty at the same time. Since his 
elder brother ascended the throne, he bears the title of 
Monsieur. He dabbles a good deal in politics, and is in 
open opposition to the influence of the queen and her 
coterie. He surrounds himself with men of letters, has a 
caustic wit, and is skilful at mystifications, is fond of quoting 
Latin, cares little for women, and is a singular mixture of 
excessive aristocratic exclusiveness and of progressive ten- 
dencies. He understands England and admires parliament- 
ary and constitutional government, makes fun of " Gothic " 
proclivities, and paves the way for the rising power of the 
bourgeoisie ; but yet he is prince of the blood, down to his 
very finger-nails. 

What a contrast the Comte d'Artois presents to his two 
brothers ! He is Charles Philippe of France now, but forty- 
two years later will have been Charles X. and be for the 
second time an exile at Holyrood. He is a tall young man, 
slender, elegant, and active, — a handsome fellow, gallant to 
the verge of libertinism, without much education, but with 
natural talent. Being an accomplished rider, he has during 
the last year or two brought racing into fashion, — for there 
are races in Paris in t 789. He owns a stable and trainers 
and jockeys, whom he calls des jaquets. 

See, yonder comes a boy four years old, fair, gentle, ex- 



134 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

quisitely graceful. He is the son of Louis XVI. and of 
Marie Antoinette, — the poor boy who will endure such 
sufferings in the Temple. There he will live for months 
without uttering a word ; now he chatters like a Httle man. 
Indeed, some of his sayings show the spirit of the eighteenth 
century. He first made the remark attributed nowadays 
to many children, " If God sends rain to make the corn 
grow, why does He let it fall upon the pavement?" 

His sister, the future Duchesse d'Angouleme, is playing 
with him, but without much vivacity. Her disposition is 
not melancholy yet, but she is dominated by a precocious 
feeling of dignity. 

The king rises at seven, says his prayers, and then proceeds 
to dress. He then goes to mass, receives his ministers and 
ambassadors, dines, takes a walk, works at his watch- 
making, and joins the queen at the Trianon; holds public 
and private audiences, eats his supper, and goes to bed. 

He rarely changes his dress during the day, unless he has 
to leave the chateau. To-day he is wearing a coat of gray 
silk, ornamented with silver. His small-clothes are of the 
same material, his waistcoat is white satin, embroidered in 
silk with roses and green leaves, with silver spangles and 
silver buttons, like those on the coat, but smaller. He wears 
a three-cornered hat, trimmed with a silver cord, and carries 
a long cane with a gold knob. His shoe-buckles are silver, 
and his lace ruffles are point (TAlen^on. 

At one o'clock I see him at his dinner. The steward of 
the household has shown me the menu, and, what is more, he 
has let me see the prices. 

Beef stewed in its own juice. Blanquette of chicken, with truffles. 

Rice soup. Squabs a la D'Huxelles. 

Onion and chicken soup. Ham and spinach. 

Pates de foie gras. Turkey a la Perigueux. 

Chicken pates. Three fat pullets; one larded. 

Mutton chops. Eighteen larks. 

Stewed rabbit. One young duck from Rouen. 

Chicken wings and trimmings. One chicken from Caux. 

Salmi of red partridges. Six partridges. 

Spring chickens a I'Allemande. Three woodcocks. 

Veal kidneys glaces. 



ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 135 

The cost of all this amounts to two hundred and eighty 
francs. Living seems to have been more abundant and 
far cheaper then than in our own day. Such a repast served 
in 1889 by a leading Paris restaurateur would not cost less 
than one thousand francs, without wine. 

The court balls are charming; they dance gavottes and 
minuets, and sometimes even a dance called the chaconne, 
derived from the ballet of the opera, for stately dances are 
going out of fashion. The queen, being a native of Austria, 
has introduced the waltz and several Hungarian dances, to 
the great scandal of old members of the Old Regime. In 
other respects the court at the chateau can hardly be said 
to amuse itself. It is preoccupied with politics. The great 
social interest is at the Trianon. 

The Little Trianon is a sort of earthly paradise in mini- 
ature. A great deal of unnecessary fuss has been made 
about this graceful fancy of the queen's, which, as royal 
fancies go, is not expensive. It is a vision of Watteau 
realized by a rich and charming woman. It is opera comique 
incarnate ; it is foolishly and divinely fascinating. 

The little palace is the most perfect expression of the 
eighteenth century. It has a little theatre and a temple to 
Cupid. A belvedere is on the summit of a hillock in the 
park, and near it are the farm buildings, the dairy, the school, 
and the temple to Love. Ah, what a charming spot ! Here 
the queen walks and rests, drinks milk, eats curds, makes 
cream-cheeses, wears pink or blue percale, and a straw hat 
trimmed with blue-bells or cornflowers. Her dearest friends 
are there her company. There is the Princesse de Lamballe, 
and the Princesse de Polignac, and her favorites among the 
gentlemen, Comte Adhemar, Comte Patastron, and M. de 
Vaudreuil. All conform, with the best grace in the world, 
to this elegant caprice of the queen, who, weary of gayety, 
masked balls, sleighing parties, and other court amusements, 
has now taken a fancy to play the shepherdess, after the pat- 
tern of those in Florian. All her guegts wear village cos- 
tumes ; the royal princes and princesses take their share 
in these elegant and innocent diversions. The king is the 



136 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

village miller. He may be seen carrying on his back heavy 
sacks of grain and flour. His strength is herculean. The 
queen is milkmaid, and serves out her milk to the good 
villagers of the neighborhood. 

Monsieur — that is the Comte de Provence — is the school- 
master, and teaches little boys from the neighboring vil- 
lages. He is particularly delighted with this travesty ; and 
as he has always had a taste for letters and a dash of the 
pedagogue in his disposition, he plays his part with wonder- 
ful success. One day, a boy, too young to have learned 
respect for royalty, flung a paper pellet across the room, 
which hit the prince in the face. His Highness rose, and 
seized the delinquent by the ears. "Ah, Monseigneur," 
cried the boy, " you are only making believe to teach school, 
have mercy, and only make believe to whip me ! " 

The evenings at the Trianon are very gay, and are unre- 
strained by ceremony. They play on the harpsichord, they 
sing Garat's songs, they talk a little scandal, — not much, 
however. Sometimes stories are told of gayety or gallantry, 
but they would have seemed insipidly virtuous to the Queen 
of Navarre, Madrigals are also written to Queen Marie 
Antoinette. 

" I seek in verse to celebrate the beauty I adore, 
I think of it — rethink of it, in vain ; 
My happy heart with thought of it with joy so runneth o'er 
My mind cannot find words to weave the strain." 

Sometimes they even presume to write epigrams on cruel 
ladies. Here is a specimen : — 

" You have sworn me love eternal 

Often, lady fair ; 
And the vows you swore, as often 

Sailed away on air. 
I know it too well, loveliest; 

And, if the air were slow. 
You 'd agitate your gilded fan 

And make them faster go." 

Before they separate for the night after these pleasures. 



ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION: 1 37 

they wind up — let me whisper it, lest it encourage evil tastes 
in the Paris of 1889 — with onion soup ! ^ 

On the Queen of France asking for Verses on her Defects. 
By M. de Boufflers. 

Would you know what Rumor lays 

To the charge of Antoinette ? 
That she 's often light it says, 
Fickle, mad, and a coquette. 
And is it so ? • 
Ah, yes ! but know 
So nice the line that fancy draws, 
Her very slights 
Create delights. 
And Cato's self would smile applause. 

If for business or for pleasure 
The hour by herself be set, 
One, 't is said, may wait her leisure ; 
'T is a trifle to forget. 
And is it so.'' 
Ah, yes ! but know 
That when one next beholds her face, 
All wrongs adieu. 
Delights renew. 
And time flies on with double pace. 

That /and me fill all discourse 
And j-^//"runs on supremely; 
'T is said she finds no other source. 
She loves herself supremely. 
And is it so .'' 
Ah, yes ! but know 
The case is just, you '11 find; 
What blame to prove 
That she should love 
What 's loved by all mankind ? 

1 It must have been on one of these occasions that the Marquis 
de Boufflers addressed some charming lines to Marie Antoinette, 
who had asked him to tell her of her faults. I have never seen the 
original of M. de Boufilers' poem. But a translation of it was in an 
extract book made by my mother in her youth, and she made me 
learn the verses when I was a little girl. I have an impression that 
she told me the translation had been made by one of the literary 
young men in Boston in her day, — Mr. Ticknor, Mr. Prescott, Mr. 
Tudor, or Mr. Parsons. — E. W. L. 



1 3 8 THE FRENCH RE VOL UTION. 

Few people know that it was Pascal of the " Lettres Pro- 
vinciales " who first conceived the idea of estabhshing om- 
nibuses in Paris. The scheme was tried, but in 1789 had 
been given up. Instead, we can find plenty of hackney- 
coaches. They are heavy, cumbersome, ill built, and have 
each a pair of horses. The drivers are all in rags, but some 
wear old dress livery coats in tatters. There is also a sort 
of cabriolet hung very high upon large wheels like those in 
Naples, and there are plenty of sedan chairs, some of them 
very luxurious, and borne by well-dressed stout chairmen. 
There are a few coiicous, but as yet these are not in all their 
glory. 

In 1789 the Parisians had no prescience of M. Haussmann, 
but instinctively their souls longed for him. iV distinguished 
architect, M. Dewailly, is, at the very moment of our visit, 
about to exhibit, with the king's permission, in the salon of 
the Louvre, a project for laying out the streets of Paris afresh, 
almost like that of the future Baron Haussmann. 

Alas! in 1789 the Louvre, the Tuileries, and the Palais 
Royal are surrounded by a network of disreputable streets, 
the haunt of cut-throats, thieves, and burglars. Near the 
Hotel de Ville there are some peasants' cottages, with their 
dunghills,^ and pigs wallowing in the mire ; while geese splash 
and cackle in the gutters. 

The public drive is along what was then called the Grand 
Cours, but subsequently was renamed the Avenue des Champs 
Elysees. The Champs Elys^es is a kind of wood, where 
skittle players and football players make matches with each 
other. Private equipages drive in that part of the wood 
which hes back of the gardens of the houses of the Rue St. 
Honor^. The Cours de la Reine is separated from the 
Champs Elysees by a ditch where those who play cochon- 
net (an old-fashioned village ball game) come to amuse 
themselves. 

The Pont Neuf may be compared to the heart of the ani- 
mal system. It is the centre of circulation in Paris in 1 789. 
Police agents take their stand there, and expect to arrest the 

1 See Book IV. Chapter IV. on Robespierre. 



ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 1 39 

men who are "wanted." If they do not find them there, 
they go to the Palais Royal. The openings to the bridge 
are a great place for camelots, — that is, the Cheap Jacks of that 
period, — and likewise for recruiting sergeants, Vho employ all 
sorts of arts to entrap the unwary, and the statue of Henri 
Quatre looks down with a complaisant smile on all this fraud 
and hurly-burly. 

But the real centre of Parisian life in 1 789 I know to be 
the Palais Royal. It is nine o'clock in the evening, and in 
spite of the non-discovery of gas, or of electricity, the Palais 
Royal is a blaze of light from one end to the other. Under 
the arcades jewellers display their wares behind the little 
panes of their narrow windows which glitter like the stars. 
Here are long chains of jewels, pearls, and precious stones ; 
watches by wholesale, rings of all kinds ; diamond or rhine- 
stone ear-rings, snuff-boxes, gold mounted work-cases, things 
that constitute our modern bric-a-brac, filigree jewelry, and 
gold, silver, or enamelled cups of antique shapes with ebony 
handles. The drapers and mercers have rich stuffs hanging 
from the ceiling to the floor of their estabhshments, and those 
who pass by finger them, — not always with clean hands. 

There are restaurants, cafes, and eating-stands. Drinking 
and eating go on at all hours, street musicians are endeav- 
oring to charm those who are sitting at dinner, and beggars 
are imploring charity with a nasal whine. 

In the gardens and under the arcades lounge a singular 
and promiscuous crowd. Dandies dressed in silk elbow 
vagabonds swarming with vermin. An English family all 
agape with curiosity has encountered a party of Turks, wear- 
ing enormous turbans, who pretend to take no interest in any- 
thing around them. 

Young men of fashion sit on chairs at their ease in the 
garden, staring at the women through their glasses, eating 
ices and reading the gazettes, for the place is as bright as 
day. The news of the past twenty-four hours is discussed. 
There are disputes and quarrels and reconciliations. De- 
bauchery in the Palais Royal takes no pains to hide itself] 
it is there on its own ground. 



140 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



Sometimes great people visit the minor theatres as a joke. 
On one such occasion the queen, smelling the tempting 
savor of some cabbage soup that was being served on the 
stage, had a bowl full of it brought up to her box, and shared 
it with the Princesse de Lamballe. 

To turn to the fashions of 1 789. We will begin with the 
ladies' coiffures. They are outrageous. The caricatures of 
the time tell of heads being dressed to resemble frigates. 
But I dare not vouch for this. It may be caricature.^ 

There are new fashions in caps of all kinds, — caps a la 
Gertrude., which imitate those of peasant women ; caps aux 
sentiments replies (that is, "caps of repressed feelings"), and 
of "the slave emancipated," etc. 

Bonnets are worn only by great ladies and by wealthy 
bourgeoises. They are commonly of straw, tall in the crown, 
and trimmed with silk, ribbon, and lace. Emerald green 
intermixed with very bright pink is extremely fashionable. 
It is proper for ladies in public to carry a fan in one hand 
and a little velvet mask in the other, which, however, is 
rarely put on. 

Men think it good taste to dress simply in the street, in 
dark cloth, after the English fashion ; soot-color {suie des che- 
mifiees de Londres) is very fashionable. The hats are tall, 
tapering, and have a silver buckle in the middle of their 
ribbon. Small-clothes are of nankeen, or nankeen color, 
opening at the sides with seven pearl buttons. White stock- 
ings it is not good taste to wear on the street ; they should 
be white with blue stripes. Men carry muffs occasionally, as 
well as the ladies. 

It is the correct thing for a man of fashion to carry two 
watches, and to hold in the hand a bamboo cane with a gold 
knob, or one of porcelain. Dandies carry the cane up to the 
shoulder, like a musket. 

Besides soot-color, coats are made of apple-green cloth, 
bottle-green, dead-leaf, and beef-blood. This last sang de 
bceufis quite the rage. It is worn with a white silk waistcoat, 

1 True, however. Madame d'Oberkirch describes such a coiffure 
on the head of Marie Antoinette. — E. W. L. 



ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. 141 

and small-clothes made of satin, of an untranslatable color, 
tete de negre. The shirt bosoms and the cuffs are trimmed 
with lace. If boots are worn they must be of soft leather ; 
yellow top-boots are the height of the fashion, but only the 
most advanced dandies can venture to wear them. The 
hair is commonly powdered, but some men of rank have 
given up powder, and have their hair simply tied behind 
with a black ribbon. 

Little boys are dressed like sailors, partly because that cos- 
tume is worn by Monseigneur the Dauphin. 

What would you say to me if I left Paris without seeing 
the Bastille ? That mysterious prison, which in a few weeks 
will be destroyed, is now only guarded by a few old Invalides. 
One may be permitted in 1789 to visit the dungeons, for there 
is nobody there. Prisoners pay pretty high for their board 
and lodging,^ but apart from the expense they are not badly 
fed. 

There is, properly speaking, no garrison in Paris. The 
Swiss in their red uniforms are at Versailles, and the brilliant 
and faithful gardes dii corps (body-guards) are there too. The 
Gardes Frangaises are intrusted with the maintenance of 
order in the capital. Their regiment contains 4,878 men. 
All wear a white uniform with blue trimmings. This regi- 
ment is much permeated by the new ideas. The officers are 
all of the purest blood of the nobility, and the non-commis- 
sioned officers are often of the best bourgeois families. The 
soldiers never keep their family name. They exchange it for 
that of some flower, — Fair Rose, Fine Tulip, Mayflower, 
etc. They are in the highest order as to dress and equip- 
ments, and walk with a brisk step, twirling their mustachios. 
Very little can be said for their morality, or, in their love- 
affairs, for their sense of honor. 

It is in the Halles (or great market-places of Paris) that 
the lower class of the Parisians appears in all its glory. Let 
us take a look at the Halles. There is the Butter Halle, 

1 The king made handsome allowance for their subsistence, but 
this, for the most part, seems to have gone into the pockets of the 
governor, M. de Launay. — E. W. L. 



142 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

the Fish Halle, the Marche des Proubaines, the market for 
green-stuff, and the potato market under a large shed ; and 
the flower-market, covering in all nearly ten thousand square 
yards. There is nothing to shelter the provisions from the 
inclemency of the weather, except immense red umbrellas. 
The market-women {dames de la Halle) have all sorts of 
privileges. They wait on the queen with their congratula- 
tions when she becomes a mother, and on the king when he 
begins his reign ; they figure in many Parisian ceremonies 
(as they continue to do even in 1889), and probably will to 
the end of the chapter. 

Sometimes they are very pretty, but rarely decently polite. 
Some boast that they have belonged to the Ilalles, mother 
and daughter, since the time of Saint Louis. They have 
an especial vocabulary called the didionnaire poissard. 
Their abuse is occasionally sublime. Alliteration plays a 
great part in their invectives. Let us go up to one of them. 
There is a great smell of codfish. Housekeepers, grisettes, 
soldiers, and well-dressed men are swarming round the fish- 
stalls. A young girl timidly comes up to a stout, red-faced 
woman. 

" Madame, how much do you ask for this eel? " 

" One livre for you, my Venus of love." 

*' No ; ten sous." 

'•'Ten sous! Do you suppose I stole it? Get home 
with you ! I wish the boys were out of school ! I 'd make 
them run after you, you baggage ! . . . Ah, well, my 
little love, you may have it, after all, for ten sous." 

The sound of a violin is heard. A man is singing in the 
street. What does he sing? You might guess beforehand. 

" La boulangere, d'ou viens-tu .'' 
J'arrivons de I'Autriche, 
Si je n'avions que ma virtu, < 

Je ne serions pas ben riche, vois-tu, 
Je ne serions pas ben riche ! " 

And, lastly, as to the police. The lieutenant of police is 
as powerful as a minister of state, indeed, more so. His 
secret influence is almost boundless. He can hush up any 



ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION: 



143 



matter he may please. He can put any obnoxious person 
quietly out of the way. There are about three hundred 
agents called mouchards, who serve under him. It is no 
longer the custom to beat the watch ; but the security of the 
capita], especially during the hours of darkness, leaves much 
to be desired. Professional thieves are numerous in propor- 
tion to the population. It is not prudent to walk abroad 
after nine o'clock in the neighborhood of Notre Dame, in 
the Champs Elysees, or even on the Boulevard. 



BOOK III. 

THE COLLAPSE OF FRENCH ROYALTY. 

I. The Flight to Varennes. 

II. Count Axel Fersen. 

III. The Tenth of August and the Massacres of September. 

IV. The Princesse de Lamballe. 
V. Last Hours of the King. 

VI. Marie Antoinette and Robespierre. 
VII. Closing Scenes in the Life of Marie Antoinette. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES.^ 

THE most interesting chapter in Carlyle's prose epic, the 
" History of the French Revolution," is the one that 
records the story of the Fhght to Varennes. But of late 
years memoirs, journals, and public documents bearing on 
the subject have been brought to light, which correct some 
errors in Mr. Carlyle's narrative. These are especially the 
memoirs of Madame de Tourzel (1883) and the Diary and 
Letters of Count Fersen (1877). 

The Fhght to Varennes was not merely a picturesque and 
thrilling episode in the French Revolution, it was also a 
great crisis in European history. Europe at this time was 
in dread of the approach of Jacobinism. The hnigr'es were 
beseeching every court, not only to deliver their sovereign 
from the durance in which he was placed, but to stamp out 
a fire which endangered their own security. The Comte 
d'Artois had formed a plan by which France was to be in- 
vaded from several sides at once, — from the South by Spain, 
from the East by Savoy, from the North by the Austrians. 

1 Abridged from an article in the " London Quarterly Review," i886. 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 145 

The centre of this combination was the Emperor Leopold 
II., who had recently succeeded his brother Joseph as sover- 
eign of Austria. 

The position of the Emperor Leopold was an exceedingly 
difficult one. The proposed scheme of invasion depended 
on the successful escape of the king and his family from 
Paris, which would have secured the sympathies of all 
Europe, but there was great danger to Austria, surrounded 
as she was by enemies, should she act alone. 

The king was to go to Montm^dy, but he was not to 
stop there. A camp was to be formed round the old 
chateau of Thouelle in the neighborhood. Bouill^'s faithful 
German regiments were to be joined by a number of emigres ; 
but, above all, ten thousand Austrian troops were to be 
massed upon the frontier a few miles from Thouelle. Once 
out of Paris, the king would be a free agent. He would 
dissolve the Assembly, restore the clergy to their posses- 
sions, and by thus destroying the basis on which the value 
of the assignats rested (assignats were the government's 
promises to pay out of the sale of the confiscated estates of 
the nobles and the clergy), he would cause a bankruptcy in 
France, and deprive his rebellious subjects of their sources 
of credit. Escape would be the potent engine of a counter- 
revolution. 

The flight of the king from Paris had long been planned 
and discussed, but it did not assume a definite shape until 
after April 18, 17 91. On May 29, the date of departure 
was fixed for June 12 ; but a democratic waiting-maid of 
the dauphin did not leave her service till the nth. Sunday 
evening, June 19, was next agreed upon ; but at the last 
moment another waiting-maid of the dauphin who could 
not be trusted caused the delay of another day. 

The most active agent in preparations for the flight was 
Count Axel Fersen, commander of the Royal Swedish Regi- 
ment in the king's service, and an intimate friend of the king 
and queen. On the afternoon of Monday, June 20, he 
paid a last visit to the royal family at the Tuileries. He 
found them resolved on departure, notwithstanding a preva- 



146 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

lent rumor that their plans for flight had been discovered. 
They were both deeply affected. The king said to the 
count, in taking leave of him, that he could never forget all 
he had done for him. The queen wept bitterly. To avoid 
suspicion, she drove out with her children to the gardens 
called Tivoli, and told her daughter while there that she 
must practice discretion, and not be surprised at anything 
she might see or hear. Fersen then returned to his own 
house to make his final preparations ; he visited the hotel of 
Mr. Quentin Crauford in the Rue de Clichy, to see whether 
the new berline, built for the king's journey, had arrived 
from the coachmaker's. At eight o'clock he went again to 
the Tuileries with a letter to the queen, informing her of a 
slight change in the arrangement made for the waiting-maids. 
As he took the letter to the Tuileries, everything seemed 
quiet. At a quarter to nine the three body-guards who 
were to act as outriders for the royal party, came to Fersen 
for instructions. He then sent off a chaise, which was to 
convey the two waiting-maids to Claye, gave his Igist orders 
to his coachman, Balthasar Sapel, and then mounted the 
box of the hackney-coach in which he was to drive the 
royal family to the barrier. 

The queen returned from her drive to Tivoli at seven 
o'clock. She then submitted herself to one of those elabo- 
rate feats of hair-dressing which excite our wonder in the 
portraits of the time. This process lasted more than an hour, 
and she then had an interview with the three body-guards 
who were to accompany her in her flight., Passing to her 
drawing-room, she found the Corate de Provence, who had 
just taken an affecting leave of his sister Elisabeth. He had 
come with his wife to supper, as was their custom every 
evening. The supper was served at nine, and lasted nearly 
two hours. Monsieur and his wife were to leave Paris that 
night by different roads. They did not know whether they 
should join the king at Montmedy, or should ever see him 
again. The brothers indeed then met for the last time. 
Monsieur left the Tuileries, never to re-enter it until he did 
so as Louis XVUI. in 18 14. After supper the queen dis- 








DUCHESSE D^ANGOULEME AND THE DAUPHIN. 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 147 

missed her servants as soon as possible. She then went to 
bed^ or appeared to do so, and the attendant shut the door 
of the passage leading to her room. The dauphin, on re- 
turning home from Tivoli, had eaten his supper and had 
been put to bed at nine o'clock. Madame (his young sister) 
had given orders to be called at eight o'clock. About eleven 
at night the queen knocked at the door of her son's chamber. 
He was fast asleep ; but when she told him he was to go to a 
fortress where he would command his regiment, he threw 
himself out of bed and cried, " Quick ! quick ! give me a 
sword and my boots, and let me be off! " He was dressed 
like a little girl, in a costume which Madame de Tourzel had 
already provided. His sister, who had been awakened earlier, 
wore a cheap dress of muslin which had been bought a few 
days before for about three quarters of a dollar. A piece of 
it still exists in Orleans. The two children, with their gov- 
erness and the two waiting-maids, met in one of the queen's 
apartments. The queen looked out into the courtyard and 
saw that everything was quiet. The hackney-coach was 
standing close by a door in the furthest corner, through which 
the royal family were to make their escape. Fersen, who 
had made every preparation with skill and rapidity, sat, 
dressed like a coachman, on the box. This door led from 
the apartments of a noble who had emigrated, and was left 
unguarded. The queen solemnly intrusted her children to 
Madame de Tourzel, who with her charge passed through 
dark passages to the unlocked door, and then out into the 
court. Fersen lifted the children into the coach, handed in 
Madame de Tourzel, and drove off. A short time afterwards 
the two waiting-maids were sent down another staircase ; a 
cabriolet was waiting for them on the other side of the Pont 
Royal, and they drove off to Claye. 

Fersen, knowing that the king, queen, and Madame 
Elisabeth could not arrive immediately, took a turn round 
the Quais, and then came back by the Rue St. Honor^ to 
the Petit Carrousel. He waited three quarters of an hour, 
but no one came. Lafayette's carriage, guarded by dra- 
goons, drove by with flashing lights. Lafayette was on his 



148 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

way to the coucher of the king, whom he held a long time in 
conversation, for grave suspicions of flight that night had been 
aroused. The guards had been doubled ; every one was on 
the alert. 

Lafayette at last drove away. The king was seen to bed 
by the servant who had charge of the rooms. The doors of 
the great gallery were locked by the porter in attendance, 
and the keys were placed in his mattress, where they were 
found the next morning. As soon as the king was left alone, 
he got up and dressed himself for the flight. 

After the hackney-coach had been waiting in the Carrousel 
three quarters of an hour, a lady was seen approaching it. 
She was Madame Elisabeth. Her attendant had left her 
when within sight of the carriage. Not long after came the 
king. He told Madame de Tourzel he had left the Tuileries 
by the great gate, and that his shoe-buckle having become 
loose he had stopped to arrange it with all the coolness in 
the world. They waited for the queen some little time, and 
it was probably then that Lafayette's carriage passed a second 
time, and the king could not repress an insulting exclamation 
as it flashed by him. He looked upon Lafayette as his, 
jailer. The story of the queen losing herself in the Rue de 
Bac is apocryphal ; but on leaving the palace she found a 
sentinel posted at the top of the staircase she was about to 
descend, and had to wait till she could pass him. She after- 
wards told Fersen, on his visit to Paris in the February 
following, that, passing through the Great Carrousel, her con- 
ductor did not know where to find the Little Carrousel, and, 
at her suggestion, asked a horse-guard. When she got into 
the carriage the king embraced her, and cried, " How glad 
I am to see you here ! " 

Fersen by a roundabout route then drove to the Barrier 
of Clichy. The guard-house at the barrier was lighted up. 
Every one was en fete. A marriage was being celebrated with 
drinking and dancing, and the royal party passed unrecog- 
nized. A short distance beyond the gate they found the 
berline, a large travelling carriage made to hold six persons. 
It was drawn by four strong Norman horses. Fersen's 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 1 49 

coachman, Balthasar Sapel, was riding postilion on one of 
them, and M. de Moustier, a tall body-guard, was on the 
box. Another body-guard, who had conducted the fugitives 
through the Carrousel, was on the dicky of the hackney- 
coach ; while M. de Valory, the third, was spurring, on one 
of Fersen's .horses, to Bondy, to order that a relay of horses 
might be ready when the travellers arrived. 

The hackney-coach was driven up close to the berline. 
The doors of both were opened, and the royal party stepped 
from one to the other, unobserved. Then the hackney-coach, 
having served its purpose, was tumbled into a ditch, Fersen 
mounted the box, and by his side was Moustier. He re- 
peatedly called out to his coachman to be quick, and not to 
spare the horses. Balthasar said afterwards that, thinking his 
master might kill his own horses if he pleased, he urged them 
to such speed that the three leagues, or seven and a half miles, 
between the barrier and Bondy, were made in half an hour. 
At any rate, they went at a good pace. The fresh horses 
ordered by Valory were waiting for them in the road. 

Fersen, after begging earnestly to be allowed to accompany 
the party, took an affectionate farewell. Happy would it 
have been had the king granted his request, and kept him 
with them ! He leaped upon the horse from which Valory 
had dismounted, and, travelling by cross-roads, reached 
Belgium in safety. 

It has been erroneously said that the carriage in which 
the royal family were making their escape was a lumbering 
coach, conspicuous by its form and splendor. This is quite 
untrue. It was a sound, well-built carriage. The bill of the 
coachmaker who made it has been preserved. The body 
was painted black and green ; the running gear, as was usual 
in those days, was yellow. It attracted no attention in itself ) 
and an older carriage would probably have broken down 
on the road. 

At Claye the waiting maids were overtaken, and the whole 
party proceeded in full dayhght to Meaux. The king was 
in high spirits. " At last," he said, " I have escaped from 
that town of Paris where I have drunk so much bitterness ; 



150 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

be assured that, once in the saddle, I shall be very different 
from what you have seen me up to the present moment." 

He read aloud a copy of the memorial he had left behind 
to be presented to the Assembly. He anticipated the happi- 
ness with which he would endow France, the return of his 
brothers and of his faithful servants, and the possibility of 
re-establishing the Cathohc religion, and repairing the evils of 
which he had been the unwilling cause. 

At about eight in the morning he looked at his watch and 
remarked, " Lafayette must be in a terrible state of mind 
now ! " It has been said that the king walked up the hills, 
" enjoying the blessed sunshine " and generally conducting 
himself imprudently. But in point of fact there was no 
sunshine. The day was dull and cloudy. The king only 
left the carriage once during the long journey and then spoke 
to no one. 

The travellers were amply supplied with provisions, which 
had been placed for them in the carriage. The children 
walked up one or two of the long hills, but occasioned no 
delay. Before reaching Chalons the horses fell twice, and 
broke the harness ; this took an hour to repair, and with that, 
and the delay at Paris, they reached Chalons two hours too 
late. They had travelled more than seven miles an hour 
including stoppages, and that, with a heavy carriage and post- 
horses, was a very good pace. 

When the king reached Chalons he believed himself in 
safety. At the next post, called Pont Sommevesle, he was 
to find a detachment of soldiers from Bouille's army, and 
thence similar detachments were to be posted all along his 
route till he reached Montmedy. But when they reached 
the lone post-house of Pont Sommevesle, not a soldier was to 
be seen. Where was Choiseul ? Where were the Lauzun 
hussars that should have been there waiting? The king felt 
as if an abyss had opened beneath his feet. The horses were 
quickly changed, and the berline moved on, but a heavy 
weight was on the travellers' hearts, — a foreboding of 
calamity. 

It was not the fault of Bouille that his arrangements mis- 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 151 

carried ; they had been skilfully and carefully made. But 
his subordinates were inexperienced and harebrained men. 
Most of them had not been informed of the importance of 
the mission with which they were charged, and beheved that 
they were detailed only to escort a treasure. Bouill6 indeed 
was expecting money to pay his troops about this time. 
Troops had been posted at Pont Sommevesle, at Clermont, 
at Ste. Menehould, at Varennes, at Stehay, and at Sedan. 
But all went wrong, owing in the first instance to the snap- 
ping of the first link in the chain of communication. 

M. de Goguelat, an officer possessing the confidence 
of the king and queen, had been sent by them to Bouill6 to 
assist him in making the last arrangements. The choice was 
an unfortunate one, because, of all- the blunderers in this affair, 
none were so bad as Goguelat. He disobeyed the most im- 
portant orders that were given him, and everything left to 
his discretion was badly done. 

How was it that the king on arriving at the post-house 
at Pont Sommevesle, where he expected to find his escort, 
found not a soul to meet him? 

The Due de Choiseul, commander of the royal dragoons, 
had been sent by Bouill^, from Metz, in order to give the 
king the last information about the preparations for the 
escort. Fersen expressed at the time a doubt as to whether 
he was the best instrument for the purpose. Although 
devoted to the cause of the king, he was frivolous and hasty, 
and had not that spirit of calm patience and decision which 
was needed in the difficult crisis. However, he was very 
rich, and of high rank, was colonel of a distinguished regi- 
ment, and was able to furnish from his own stables relays 
which would be needed for the royal party at Varennes. It 
was arranged that Choiseul should leave Paris ten hours 
before the king. At two in the afternoon the queen sent to 
him her private hair-dresser Leonard. Choiseul took him 
with him in his carriage, without telling him where he was 
going. They slept at Montmirail, left that town at four 
the next morning, and arrived at the post-house of Pont 
Sommevesle soon after eleven. Choiseul found his orderly 



152 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

there with two horses. The hussars had not arrived, but 
they appeared an hour later. M. de Goguelat, wlio was 
in command of the party, found Choiseul still dressing, 
and delivered to him a large packet of orders which he had 
received two days before from Bouille. Choiseul picketed 
his horses, and gave bread and wine to the hussars. The 
orders brought by Goguelat to Choiseul were very precise. 
Choiseul was placed in command of all the troops posted 
along the road, having full liberty to employ force if he 
thought it best to do so. If he should hear that the king 
had been arrested at Chalons, he was to attack the town, and 
to attempt a rescue. In such a case he was to despatch 
orders all along the line, so that he might be supported. 
When the king arrived at Pont Sommevesle, it was from him 
that Choiseul would receive his orders. If the king desired 
to be recognized, the hussars were to escort him with drawn 
swords to Ste. Menehould. If the king wished to remain 
incognito, he was to allow him to pass quietly, and half an 
hour after was to follow him along the road, and was to post 
a body of hussars between Ste. Menehould and Clermont, 
who were to remain there for fifteen hours, and intercept 
every one who came by, either on horseback or in a carriage, 
from the direction of Paris. This would effectually prevent 
the king's being pursued. Further, as soon as he was aware 
of the king being at hand, he was to send M. de Goguelat to 
inform the several detachments, or, if this was impossible, he 
was to carry the news himself. Choiseul did none of the 
things that were expected of him. By some strange miscal- 
culation it had been said that the berline might be expected 
to arrive at Pont Sommevesle at half-past two in the after- 
noon at latest. Supposing that the royal family left Paris 
punctually at midnight, this would have allowed a pace of 
eight miles an hour including stoppages, and without any 
accidents. Choiseul says, in a paper he wrote in his defense, 
that when three o'clock and four o'clock came, and the 
courier who was to precede the royal carriage had not 
arrived, he became very anxious, especially as the inhabitants 
of a neighboring village, believing that the soldiers had come 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 153 

to make them pay their rents, were assuming a threatening 
attitude. At four o'clock he sent off Le'onard, the hair- 
dresser, in his own post-chaise to inform the detachments 
posted on the road that the party expected had not arrived, 
and that the scheme had probably collapsed. He waited 
with his hussars, he says, till half-past five, or a quarter to six, 
and then retreated, not by the highway, but by cross-roads to 
Orbeval. When the king reached Pont Sommevesle at half- 
past six, he found no one there to give him news of the party 
of hussars, and no sign of any disturbance among the 
neighboring peasantry. 

Choiseul's neglect to wait for Valory, whether preceding 
the king or not, was inexcusable. He knew Valory to have 
orders if the king failed to reach Bondy to ride on and inform 
the detachments that the enterprise had failed. 

When Valory reached Pont Sommevesle and found no 
soldiers, he asked no questions even of the post-master, 
but, ordering fresh horses to be ready for the carriage, rode 
on to Ste. Menehould, the next post town. 

At Ste. Menehould all was confusion and uncertainty. 
Leonard had passed through with news that the treasure 
would probably not arrive that day ; and Captain d'Andoins, 
the officer in command, in spite of the remonstrances of 
Lagache, one of his non-commissioned officers, who appears 
to have been in the secret, ordered his troopers' horses to 
be unsaddled and his men dispersed. Half an hour after 
this had been done, Valory galloped up, and twenty minutes 
later came the berUne. 

The town by this time was in great excitement. Knots 
of people had gathered in the streets. Something was on 
foot, they knew not what ; and a formal request was made 
to the mayor to issue arms to the new National Guard 
which had been already enrolled. 

As the carriage stopped at the post-house it excited much 
attention. Captain d'Andoins kept in the background, but 
contrived to whisper to those in the carriage : " Your plans 
have miscarried. To avoid suspicion I will go away." He 
also made a sign to Valory to harness quickly ; but Valory 



154 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

interpreted this as a wish to speak to him, and their con- 
versation roused the attention of the crowd. Just as the 
fresh horses were being harnessed, J. B. Drouet, the post- 
master, arrived from a iield he had been cultivating in the 
neighborhood. He was a young man of twenty-eight, but 
he had served in the Conde dragoons, and had seen the 
queen at Versailles. He now thought he recognized her. 
At this moment the king put his head out of the window to 
speak to Valory, and Drouet, by a sudden inspiration, com- 
pared the portrait on the assignat which Valory had just 
paid him for the relay with the head of the traveller. He 
noticed the long aquiline nose, the short-sighted look, the 
spotted complexion ; and when a message from the town 
council came to ask his opinion, he had no doubt that the 
berline contained the king and his family. Indeed, the 
recognition of the king seems to have been made simul- 
taneously by many of the loiterers. Suspicion ran from 
mouth to mouth. The crowd seemed determined to molest 
the travellers. Lagache, resolved that one soldier at least 
should do his duty and follow his sovereign, clutched his 
reins in his teeth, and with a pistol in each hand broke 
through the crowd, firing a shot as he passed out of the town. 
He followed the berline towards Clermont, but, with the 
fatality which accompanied every incident in the flight, 
he went astray in a wood, and did not reach Clermont till 
eleven at night, when the king was already a prisoner at 
Varennes. After the berline had passed, D'Andoins tried 
to assemble and mount his dragoons, but was prevented 
by the populace, who forced the soldiers to surrender to 
the mayor. 

Drouet, accompanied by three other citizens of Ste. Mene- 
hould, set off at once to spread their news. As they galloped 
out of the Chalons gate, the newly armed National Guard, 
mistaking them for soldiers, fired on them. One was killed, 
another dangerously wounded. Then a cry arose, " To 
arms ! " The tocsin was sounded. All the town was on the 
alert. 

Meantime the king was passing through a beautiful 







/.vV ' . 



I 

*-- ft! 



MARIE ANTOINETTE. 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 155 

country along the banks of the river Aire. A narrow bridge, 
after passing tlirough the town of Varennes, crosses that river ; 
and beyond the bridge was the Hotel du Grand Monarque, 
where fresh horses were waiting for the travellers. There 
was no one to tell them this. It had been at first arranged 
that horses should be ready for them before entering the 
town on the road from Clermont ; but Goguelat, at the last 
moment, had altered this arrangement, and neglected to 
give notice to the travellers. 

Varennes was not a post town. Travellers usually took 
another road to Verdun. Varennes was a peaceful little 
place ; its inhabitants were that day engaged in preparing 
for a fete, when the hair-dresser Leonard rode in with his 
message to the troops of failure and despair. The horses 
waiting for the berline at the Hotel du Grand Monarque 
were Choiseul's private property. Leonard tried to get 
them for his carriage, but was refused. He, however, pro- 
cured others. Had he continued on the road to Montmedy, 
he would have met Bouille, and perhaps have induced him 
to advance and see what was the matter ; but, stricken with 
the common fatality, he took the road to Verdun. Having 
done all the mischief he could by his journey on the king's 
route, he now discontinued it at the very moment when he 
might have been of use. 

The travelling carriage stopped at the entrance of the 
town of Varennes, where they expected to find horses wait- 
ing for them. Nothing was to be seen. Every house was 
in repose. In vain the king knocked at a door ; he was 
angrily told to go away. The three body-guards went off 
to look for the expected horses. The queen roused up 
a gentleman, M. de Prefontaine ; but he had been ill, and 
could give her no information. 

At this moment two riders, Drouet and a friend, spurred 
past the carriage, crying out to the postilions : " Don't go 
on. Unharness your horses. Your passenger is the king ! " 

Valory, after a fruitless search for the relay of Choiseul's 
horses, came back' to the king, who met him with the 
words, "We are betrayed!" Their only course was to 



156 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

hurry forward, but the postiUons refused to go. on; they 
said that their mistress had charged them to go no further 
than the entrance to Varennes, because they were wanted 
for the hay harvest the next day. It is said that this woman 
never forgave herself for having thus caused the deaths 
of the king and queen. At last the body-guards, by 
threatening violence, induced the postilions to remount 
and take the carriage into Varennes. But thirty-five minutes 
had been lost. Drouet had the start of them, and it was 
too late. 

Drouet pulled up at the Bras d'Or tavern, where, though 
the time was nearly eleven, a few young men still lingered. 
Drouet entered in haste, drew the landlord aside, and told 
the news, enjoining him at once to rouse all trustworthy 
people, who must see to it that the king was arrested. The 
landlord called up his opposite neighbor, the mayor, M. 
Sauce, while Drouet went to barricade the bridge which 
united the two parts of the town. All this while two 
captains of dragoons, Charles Bouille' and Raigecourt, were 
sitting at the window of their hotel, doing nothing. They 
heard a little movement in the town, but paid it no attention. 
Sauce sent his little children to rouse people from their 
beds. Seven young men armed, prepared to stop the 
carriage. The postchaise with the two chamber-maids 
came first. They were asked for their passport, and on 
their saying it was in the second carriage were suffered to 
pass on. The occupants of the berline told the party who 
detained and questioned them, that they were on their 
way to Frankfort. Sauce held up a lantern, and scruti- 
nized the faces of the travellers. At last the passport 
was delivered to him. He remarked that it was signed 
by the king, but not by the President of the National 
Assembly, and that in consequence of this irregularity he 
must detain the travellers till the matter could be looked 
into ; and when the postilions attempted to proceed, they 
were stopped by armed men, who cried, " If you go 
a step further, we fire ! " Nothing was left for the royal 
family but to get out of their carriage. 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 



157 



M. Sauce offered them the hospitahty of his house. On 
the ground-floor was a grocer's shop, with a strong smell of 
tallow, particularly disagreeable to the queen. The upper 
story was reached by a narrow corkscrew staircase, unchanged 
to the present day. On the upper floor there were two 
rooms, one looking on the street, the other on the courtyard. 
In the back room, about fifteen feet by twenty, was collected 
the majesty of France. The king seated himself in the mid- 
dle of the room in an armchair ; the queen asked for some 
hot water, wine, and clean sheets, probably for the children. 
The dauphin and his sister were placed upon a bed and 
were soon asleep, with Madame de Tourzel seated at their 
side. The body-guards sat on a bench beneath the window. 
It is incredible that the king should not have been rescued 
at this moment. Sixty hussars were in their barracks at a 
short distance from the bridge, with their horses saddled, 
ready to start at any moment ; that they were useless in this 
crisis was owing to Goguelat's errors. By some strange in- 
fatuation he had sent their own commander, D'Eslon, off to 
Bouille, where he could be of no use, and left his men in 
charge of a young heutenant of eighteen, Rohrig by name, 
who lost his head and did nothing. As soon as he found 
himself in difificulty, he crossed the river by a ford and gal- 
loped off to Bouille. Charles Bouille and Raigecourt did the 
same. By this time the whole town of Varennes was on foot. 
Barricades were built across all the streets leading to the 
country. Two or three pieces of ordnance, which were rust- 
ing in the stables of the old town hall, were dragged forth 
and placed partly on the bridge and partly on the entrance 
of the road from Clermont. 

Meantime, about one o'clock in the morning, arrived 
Choiseul with his forty dragoons, — the body who should 
have waited at Pont Sommevesle. They were halted by a 
barricade and the two old pieces of cannon ; but a few 
dragoons under Damas reaching the spot at the same mo- 
ment, they pushed easily through the barricade and entered 
the town. Choiseul marched straight down the street, not 
stopping at the house where the royal party were prisoners. 



158 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

till he reached the hussar barracks, which he found deserted, 
the hussars and their young commander having crossed the 
ford and galloped off to Bouille. 

Choiseul drew up his soldiers, who were Germans, and 
told them that the king and queen were prisoners in the 
town, and they must rescue them. His words were re- 
sponded to by a shout of '' Der Konig ! Die Konigin ! " 
He trotted his troops back to Sauce's house, and was there 
joined by Damas, who had just learned that the fugitive 
hussars had even carried off Choiseul's horses intended for 
a relay. At this moment very slight firmness on the soldiers' 
part or that of their commander would have saved the king ; 
but there was the usual hesitation and delay. 

In the house the king had acknowledged himself. Some 
of those around him were moved to tears, and Sauce was 
almost ready to give way. Outside, however, was a surging 
crowd, kept up to their purpose by Drouet. The king as- 
sured all those who heard him that he had no intention of 
leaving France, — he was not going beyond the frontier. 
A voice cried, " Sire, we don't believe you ! " The queen 
did her best to touch the hearts of Madame Sauce and 
Sauce's mother, to induce them to persuade Sauce to let 
the party proceed. Old Madame Sauce, an old woman of 
eighty, fell down upon her knees bursting into tears, and 
kissed the hands of the children. 

When Goguelat entered the room, Louis said to him, 
"Well, when shall we set off?" He answered, "Sire, we 
wait your orders." Damas suggested placing the whole party 
on seven horses belonging to the hussars, and carrying them 
off, guarded by the remainder of that body. But Louis feared 
a stray ball might kill one of them. It would have been 
far easier to have cleared the road by a charge, and then to 
have driven off in the berline. But at last the fatal decision 
was taken of waiting for Bouille. 

Meantime, by four o'clock, ten thousand peasants from 
the neighboring towns and villages had reached Varennes. 
The barricades were strengthened, and the hussars before 
Sauce's house found themselves between two fires. Goguelat 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 159 

at this time was wounded by a pistol-shot in an altercation 
with a National Guard. This shot might have been the sig- 
nal for a massacre ; but the hussars, instead of attacking the 
crowd, fraternized with them. Jars of wine were passed from 
trooper to trooper ; soon the soldiers were half drunk, and 
calling, " Vive la nation ! " 

As the sun rose over the lovely valley of the Aire, Sauce 
asked the king to show himself to the crowd from the win- 
dow which overlooked the street ; Louis saw a dense mass 
of peasants armed with muskets, scythes, and pitchforks, and 
some women staggering, half tipsy, among the crowd. As 
he stood at the window there was a deep silence ; and when 
he told those who could hear him that he was going to 
Montme'dy, but that he would afterwards return to Varennes, 
there was a thunder of applause, and reiterated cries of 
"Vive le roi ! " " Vive la nation ! " 

At five in the morning an officer of hussars burst into the 
room where the royal family was assembled, with a bare 
sword.. It was Captain d'Eslon, who had commanded the 
one hundred hussars left at Varennes, who had been sent off 
to Bouille' by the blundering of Goguelat. On hearing news 
of what had happened from Rohrig, D'Eslon instantly, with 
seventy of his men, galloped back to Varennes. He was 
stopped at the bridge, and, having little ammunition with 
him, he dared not charge, but after a parley was permitted 
to enter the town on foot, and, presenting himself to the 
king, asked for orders. The king replied he was a prisoner, 
and had no orders to give him. 

Time was running on. The town officials were dehberating 
what they should do about the kings departure, when two 
messengers from the National Assembly arrived. One of 
them was M. de Romeuf, Lafayette's aide-de-camp, who was 
intimately known to the king and queen. The latter, when 
she saw him, cried, "Sir! is that you? I never could 
have believed it ! " It is indeed possible that had Romeuf 
been alone he might have given the royal family an oppor- 
tunity to escape ; but he handed to the queen a decree of 
the Assembly which ordered the return of the royal family 



l6o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

to Paris. Louis read it over the queen's shoulder and said, 
" There is no longer a king in France." The queen was 
less calm. " What insolence ! " she cried ; and seeing that 
the paper had fallen on the dauphin's bed, she seized it and 
threw it on the ground, saying it should not sully the couch 
of her son. 

After this, the only chance for the king was to gain time 
for Bouille to arrive. The deputies and the people were 
eager he should set out instantly for Paris. Louis suppli- 
cated for delay. " Could they not wait until eleven o'clock ? " 
A hasty breakfast was served for them. The two children 
were still asleep, and the king dropped to sleep also. As a 
last resource, one of the waiting-maids (Madame de Neuville) 
declared herself to be seized with a violent attack of illness. 
The king refused to desert her, and a doctor was sent for. 
But all these stratagems produced only an hour and a half's 
delay, and Bouille and his soldiers did not appear. The 
shouts of the impatient mob surged upward from the street. 
The carriages had been harnessed and brought up to Sauce's 
door ; the royal family slowly and sadly descended the 
winding staircase. The king walked first, and was followed 
by Madame de Tourzel and the two children ; Choiseul 
gave his arm to the queen, Damas to Madame Elisabeth ; 
the body-guards were placed on the box, guarded by two 
grenadiers with bayonets fixed in their muskets. When the 
royal family had entered the carriage, Choiseul, who had 
been the chief cause of their calamity, closed the door. 

It was half-past seven in the morning. What had caused 
the delay of Bouille ? The king had only left Varennes one 
quarter of an hour when a detachment of the Royal Alle- 
mand regiment appeared on the outskirts of the town, com- 
manded by the Marquis de Bouille in person. The bridge 
being defended, he tried to cross the river by a ford, but got 
entangled in a mill-race. The marquis had spent the night on 
the road between Varennes and Dun, the next town, sleeping 
by the wayside, with the bridle of his horse over his arm, 
but before news of the king's capture reached him he had 
left his post and returned to Stenay. As soon as he heard 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. l6l 

it, he lost no time in giving his orders, but they were slowly 
obeyed. Though the horses had been saddled all night, the 
detachment was not ready to set out till five. With a few 
stirring words to his soldiers concerning the capture of their 
king, Bouill6 placed himself at their head, distributing among 
them four hundred louis by way of encouragement. They 
rode quickly, but when they reached Varennes, the king was 
well on the road to Clermont. Even then Bouill6 would 
have charged had there been any hope of success, but, con- 
vinced that it was impossible to effect a rescue, he turned 
rein to Stenay and crossed the frontier that night, to die in 
England nine years after. 

For the royal family the heat and the dust on their return 
journey were terrible. They reached Ste. Menehould at 
half-past one, and were stopped at the gate, while the mayor 
delivered a municipal address. The royal family lunched in 
the town hall. The queen showed herself to the crowd with 
the dauphin in her arms ; and as the king and queen passed 
through the chapel where the prisoners in the town heard 
mass, they distributed money to the poor unfortunates whose 
case was hke their own. 

In the fields beyond Ste. Menehould, M. de Dampierre, an 
old gentleman who had shown them some respect, was 
dragged from his horse and murdered. The assassins re- 
turned to the royal carriage bearing his head in their 
blood-stained hands. 

The king and his family would gladly have stayed a day at 
Chalons, to recover from their fatigue. But the patriots, 
seeing that the sentiment of the town was in their favor, sent 
for a large reinforcement from Rheims. These roughs ar- 
rived at ten in the morning, and breaking into the palace 
rushed into the chapel where the royal family was hearing 
mass, and interrupting the service hurried them into their 
carriage with such precipitation that a large sum of money 
was left behind. 

Between Chalons and Epernay the queen offered a poor 
hungry wretch a piece of bxuf a la mode, that Fersen had 
had put into the carriage. A voice cried : '' Do not eat it ! 

II 



1 62 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Do you not see they wish to poison you?" The queen 
immediately partook of it herself and gave some to the 
dauphin. 

Between Epernay and Dormans, Petion, Barnave, and 
Latour-Maubourg met the royal party as commissioners from 
the National Assembly. Petion and Barnave took their 
places in the berline. Latour-Maubourg preferred to travel 
with the waiting-maids, telling the king that he could depend 
on his devotion, but that it was important to gain over the 
two others. Petion's conduct was brutal, vulgar, and inde- 
cent, but Barnave conducted himself like a gentleman. The 
queen complained to Fersen of Potion's conduct when they 
met in February, 1792. 

Saturday, June 25, was the last day of their prolonged tor- 
ment. It lasted thirteen hours, from six in the morning to 
seven in the evening. During the whole day the travellers 
were exposed to the glare of a midsummer sun and to the 
insults of the mob. At the barrier of Paris they were met 
by a dense crowd of citizens. No one raised his hat, or 
spoke a word. They entered the garden of the Tuileries by 
the swinging bridge, and were protected as they dismounted 
by the care of Lafayette. 

Such is the true story of the flight to Varennes, more 
touching in its naked simplicity than any device of art could 
make it. The royal family had many chances in their favor ; 
and they would have escaped if every one of those chances 
had not turned against them. If Choiseul had waited a short 
time longer at Pont Sommevesle ; if he had retired at a 
foot-pace along the high-road ; if he had passed through 
Ste. Menehould soon after the berline left it ; or had halted 
at the parting of the ways instead of losing himself precipi- 
tately in pathless woods ; if Goguelat had remained behind 
at the post-house, according to orders; if D'Andoins had 
not unsaddled the horses of his dragoons just before the ber- 
line arrived ; if Lagache had not lost his way in the woods ; 
if Damas had kept his men ready for action ; if Charles 
Bouille and Raigecourt had not shut themselves up in their 
bedroom ; if an orderly whom they sent out for news had 



THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES. 163 

spoken with the berline when he met it outside Varennes ; if 
yalory had crossed the bridge to the Hotel du Grand 
Monarque ; if Goguelat had not altered the position of the 
relays ; if the hair-dresser Leonard had taken the road to 
Stenay instead of losing himself on that to Verdun, — if any 
one of these things had turned out differently, the royal 
family might have been saved ! 



CHAPTER 11. 

COUNT AXEL FERSEN. 

A LL who read the sad story of the Flight to Varennes 
-^^ cannot fail to take a deep, an almost personal, in- 
terest in Count Fersen. His fate was as tragic as that of 
those he planned to save ; and as it is not widely known, 
a brief extract from a recent article in the " Gentleman's 
Magazine" may find an appropriate place among these 
narratives. 

It is in connection with the flight of Louis XVI. and Marie 
Antoinette, which, well conceived and boldly executed in its 
earlier stages, ended in such miserable, disastrous failure at 
Varennes, that the name of Jean Axel de Fersen is chiefly 
remembered, — not in virtue of his own stainless and gallant 
life, or of its most terrible and tragic ending, but of that link, 
broken only in death, which connected him with a beautiful, 
heroic, discrowned woman ; a queen in whose slow martyr- 
dom, in whose last lonely hours of anguish, men and women 
of whatever faith, of whatever politics, must always feel a lov- 
ing sympathy almost as fresh as when in those days of terror 
all Europe stood aloof and waited for news of her fate. Count 
Fersen waited with the rest, but he at least had done what he 
could to save her, in memory of those bright bygone days, 
when together they had danced in merry company in gay 
ball-rooms ; together had glided in gilded sleighs over the 
frozen snow ; together had wandered through the gardens 
and the woodlands of the Little Trianon. These two had 
played together in tragedy and comedy on a mimic stage ; 
and when the other actors vanished, falling away from her, — 
the inspirer of their pleasures, the life of their sports, — like 




COUNT FEKSEN. 



COUNT AXEL FERSEN. 165 

sapless leaves at the first pinch of fi"Ost, it was but natural 
that this man, who loved her disinterestedly when so many 
professed devotion and paid a homage which had always 
some private end in view, should stand by her as long as he 
could ; that he should to the last, when his actual presence 
would only have been an added danger, cheer her from a dis- 
tance by his words of courage and counsel. 

Of all the European sovereigns, Gustavus III. of Sweden 
was the stanchest friend that the French royal family pos- 
sessed, so that Count Fersen could at least feel that in all he 
strove to do for them as an individual, he had his master's 
approval. " If I can serve them," he writes to his father, 
" what pleasure will it not give me to acquit myself of a part 
at least of the obligations I owe them ! What a sweet sat- 
isfaction for my heart if I am able to contribute to their 
happiness ! " 

Marie Antoinette had kept a few friends — a very few — 
out of the wreck of her life, and none held a closer place in 
it than Axel de Fersen. Calumny battened on their friend- 
ship and called it an intrigue ; but calumny had pursued the 
queen from the moment when, a girl of fifteen, she set foot in 
France, and never was able to produce a single proof positive 
against a virtue that was exposed to every temptation, subject 
to every contamination. 

That Fersen was a man to whom, as a woman, Marie 
Antoinette's heart might naturally have responded, one can 
well beUeve. She found, in his gentle reliability and stead- 
fast truth, a support and companionship she sorely needed ; 
he possessed all the attributes that charm as well. And 
their friendship, begun in sunshine, starting gayly on the 
smooth tide of prosperity, outlived the foundering of many 
others. Long after, when Marie Antoinette's graceful co- 
quetries were washed out in bitter tears, when her heart was 
dead to all personal hope and joy, and beat only in throbs of 
anguish for her husband and her children, her letters to Fersen 
attest how inalienable a place he held in her gratitude and 
affection. He was perhaps foremost in her mind when in 
her sad last hours she wrote her farewell letter — one of the 



1 66 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

noblest and most pathetic letters ever penned by woman — 
to Madame Elisabeth; a letter never delivered to her to 
whom it was addressed, but found among the papers of 
Fouquier-Tinville. " I had friends once ; the idea of being 
separated from them forever, and of their sorrow, is one of the 
greatest regrets I carry with me in dying. Let them know 
at least that until my last hour I thought of them." 

Jean Axel de Fersen was born in September, 1755. He 
came of a noble Swedish family distinguished in the annals 
of their country for military achievements and high personal 
character. At the age of fifteen he was sent abroad with a 
tutor to pursue his studies, and three years later he paid his 
first visit to Paris (1773)- Versailles was at its brightest, the 
court was at its gayest, and M. de Fersen's rank and con- 
nections gave him the entree of the highest society. The 
Swedish ambassador wrote with positive enthusiasm to Gus- 
tavus III. in his young fellow-countryman's praise : " It is 
not possible to behave with greater tact and discretion than 
he does. With the handsomest of faces and plenty of wit, 
he could not fail to succeed in society, and he has done so 
completely. Your Majesty will certainly be pleased with 
him. But what so especially makes M. de Fersen worthy of 
your favors is that he is of a singular nobility and elevation 
of mind." 

The autumn of 1778 found him again in Paris, where he 
was welcomed back by Marie Antoinette, then Queen of 
France, as an old friend. Marie Antoinette was always 
especially gracious to foreigners. She felt she could allow 
herself to be so. When some one pointed out to her the 
dangers of showing such preference, and the offence it might 
give to the French nobility, she answered sadly, " They are 
the only ones who ask nothing from me." 

Her intimacy with Fersen and their evident pleasure in 
each other's society soon attracted the attention of the cour- 
tiers. It was whispered that the queen was deeply in love 
with the young Swedish nobleman, and thence they jumped 
to the worst conclusions. As soon as Axel de Fersen be- 
came aware of these slanders, he hastened to put an end to 



COUNT AXEL FERSEN. 1 6/ 

them, by requesting, as a great favor, to be appointed aide- 
de-camp to Comte Rochambeau, then on the point of depart- 
ing for America. A great lady had the effrontery to say to 
him before he left, " Comment, monsieur ! you abandon thus 
your conquest ? " " If I had made one," replied Fersen, with 
quiet dignity, " I should not have abandoned it. I depart 
free, and unhappily without leaving behind me any regrets." 

The Swedish ambassador wrote on this occasion to his 
master, King Gustavus : " I confess I cannot help believing 
she has a penchant for him. I have seen indications of it too 
certain to be able to doubt it. The young count has be- 
haved on this occasion with admirable modesty and reserve ; 
above all, in the part he took in leaving for America. The 
queen's eyes could not quit him in those last days ; in look- 
ing at him they were full of tears." 

Alas, poor queen ! If she loved him, or would have 
loved him under other circumstances ; if, in her early love- 
less life, her warm heart, craving for affection, turned to his, — 
is it to be wondered at? Is it the subject for a sneer? 

So Fersen, the aristocrat, crossed the seas to draw his 
sword on the side of democratic liberty. As Rochambeau's 
aide-de-camp he was at the surrender at Yorktown, and 
he remained in America till peace was concluded in 1783. 
On his return he received honors from his own sovereign 
and from Louis XVI., and found himself in command of 
one of the foreign regiments in the service of France, the 
Royal Su^dois, at the age of eight and twenty. 

Axel de Fersen was no narrow-minded aristocrat. He 
had indeed fewer prejudices than most men of his class, 
having in his father's house been brought up in an atmos- 
phere of liberal ideas. At first the Revolution, which, on 
his return from America, he found impending, seemed to 
him a beginning of better things for oppressed, tax-laden 
France. To use his own words, it was " A healthy malady, 
only requiring a good doctor." Then as the months passed, 
and the fever heat grew higher and higher, the near pros- 
pect appalled him, and his hopefulness turned to dismay. 
Early in 1790 he resigned his command of the Royal 



1 68 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Suedois, and was commissioned by Gustavus III. to reside 
in Paris and be the agent of his direct communications 
witli the king and queen. In Paris, therefore, he remained, 
forming one of the ever-dwindling group of friends and 
counsellors on whom the King and Queen of France could 
really depend. 

In the summer of 1791 he planned and carried out the 
escape which ended so fatally at Varennes. He did not 
" disappear into unknown space," as Carlyle says, when he 
quitted the royal party at Bondy. He hurried across 
country to Mons, over the frontier, whence he addressed 
a few triumphant lines to his father, telling him that the 
royal family were well on their way to Montm^dy, and that 
he himself was about to rejoin them. At midnight the next 
day, June 23, he wrote to his father again, this time in bitter 
grief and disappointment. " My dear father, all is lost, 
and I am in despair. The king has been arrested at 
Varennes. Judge of my sorrow, and pity me." Perhaps 
he was most to be pitied when shortly after there reached 
him a sad little letter from the unhappy queen. " I exist," 
it begins, " that is all. How anxious I have been for you, 
and how I compassionate you for all you will suffer in not 
having news of us ! May Heaven grant that this may reach 
you ! We are watched day and night, but that does not 
matter. Be easy. Nothing will happen to me." 

Count Fersen's father was now anxious that he should re- 
turn to Sweden, but Fersen soon convinced him that he must 
not desert the king and queen, nor go out of reach of news 
of them. He fixed his headquarters in Brussels, where he 
found himself surrounded by French emigre nobility, who 
disgusted him with their levity and selfishness. 

By means of cipher and sympathetic ink, he continued to 
correspond regularly with Marie Antoinette, directing and 
advising, as well as keeping her constantly informed of all 
that went on in Europe. They are sad enough reading, 
those letters, and her answers ; a record of hope deferred ; , 
of repeated disappointments ; of plans of escape that came 
to nothing; and, saddest of all, pathetic allusions to the 



COUNT AXEL FERSEN. 1 69 

time " when we shall meet again in better days." They did 
see each other once more. On Feb. 11, 1792, Fersen 
left Brussels, disguised as a courier, having at last obtained 
the queen's permission to risk a visit to Paris. On the 
13th he saw her in a brief interview. On the 21st he spent 
some hours at the Tuileries with the king and queen, and 
took tea and supper with them. At midnight they parted. 
Fersen returned to Brussels, narrowly escaping arrest on 
the way. 

In the following month King Gustavus III. was assassi- 
nated ; and in him Count Fersen lost an affectionate friend 
and protector. The French royal family also lost its strong- 
est support. The successor of Gustavus was a very different 
character, and pursued a different policy. He joined the 
Alhes, and, with the Empress Catherine, planned an invasion 
of France by way of Normandy. Thenceforth Axel de 
Fersen's political influence was practically at an end. 

Throughout the summer of 1792, Marie Antoinette con- 
tinued to write to him brief letters, addressed to an imagi- 
nary M. Rignon from an imaginary friend in Paris. In July 
she wrote : " I still exist, but it is by a miracle. ... Do 
not distress yourself too much on my account." 

After the royal family were imprisoned in the Temple, 
correspondence became almost impossible ; and to Fersen's 
bitter anxiety was added the trial of enforced ignorance. 
The public papers brought him news of the September 
massacres ; of the king's trial and execution ; of Marie 
Antoinette's separation from her children ; then of her 
removal to the Conciergerie. From that time, though her 
friends hoped against hope and struggled with despair, they 
must have known that her fate was practically sealed ; but 
the months dragged on slowly, one by one, and she still lived. 

In Fersen's diary, written at Brussels, Oct. 19, 1793, is 
a full account of a man named Andr^, who declared himself 
willing, for the sum of two million francs, to contrive the 
queen's escape. The next day Fersen learned that there 
was no longer any need for his plans; on October 16, the 
queen had been executed. 



I/O THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

" Although I was prepared for it," her friend writes, " the 
certainty overwhelmed me. I had not the strength to feel 
anything. ... It was frightful not to have any positive 
details, to know that she was alone in her last moments, 
without consolation, without any one to speak to, to whom to 
give her last wishes. It fills one with horror. Those mon- 
sters of hell ! No ! without vengeance my heart will 
never be satisfied." 

After this, till 1800, Count Fersen was employed on 
various diplomatic missions. He then returned to Sweden, 
where the last ten years of his life were spent. He was 
rich, and had a great position, but death had deprived him 
in a few years of all those whom he most cared for, — his 
beloved queen, his father, his mother, his sister, his dearest 
friend ; and private griefs and public anxieties combined to 
make his hfe a sad one. 

Sweden was passing through troubled times. Gustavus IV. 
was deserted by his people, and in 1809 was forced to 
abdicate. Charles XIII. was elected to the throne, and 
Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein was to be his suc- 
cessor. A year later Prince Christian died suddenly, and 
Count Fersen, now Grand Marshal of Sweden, was suspected 
by the populace of having contrived his death in the interest 
of the aristocratic party. 

On June 20, the day of the prince's public funeral, the 
police warned Charles XIII. that an emeute was in prepa- 
ration, and that Count Fersen's life would be in danger if he 
attended the obsequies. The king, however, took no pre- 
cautionary measures. The funeral procession, as it entered 
Stockholm, was headed by a detachment of cavalry, followed 
by a gilded coach drawn by six horses, in which sat Axel de 
Fersen, in his gorgeous uniform of grand marshal, covered 
with sparkling decorations. He had not gone far before a 
clamorous crowd gathered round his carriage, threatening 
violence and calling him Prince Christian's murderer. 

At last, at the turning of a street, an immense concourse 
of people made the progress of the procession impossible. 
They pulled open the carriage doors, and dragged Fersen 



COUNT AXEL FERSEN i'j\ 

out, but he managed to take refuge in a house near by. It 
was only for a moment's breathing space. The general in 
command of the troops, warned of his peril, sent a handful 
of soldiers, too few to contend against the infuriated mob. 
It would not be balked of its prey. Fersen was once more 
torn from his would-be protectors, dragged through the 
streets to the Hotel de Ville, and there in the courtyard 
brutally, horribly murdered, — he, to whom a soldier's 
death would have been so welcome, or who would have 
gladly died on the scaffold with the woman he loved ! Did 
he in his last moments remember her noble forgiveness of 
her murderers? At least he had time to gather his senses 
together, and to follow her example. An on-looker told 
afterwards that just before his death he struggled to his 
knees, crying aloud, " Oh, my God, who callest me thus to 
Thee, I implore Thee for these, my murderers, whom I 
forgive ! " 



CHAPTER III. 

AUGUST THE TENTH AND THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES. 

TX 7E have seen Mr. Griffith's account of the 9th and 
' ^ loth of August in the streets of Paris, and in the 
house of Mr. Morris, the American ambassador. He wit- 
nessed the attack on the Tuileries from the Quais, but could 
not see what was passing inside the palace or the gardens. 
We will take an abridged account of this from Mr. Carlyle. 

About dark on the evening of August 9, the drums 
beat the gen'erah in all the streets, to call out the National 
Guard. Then Paris knew that disorder was on foot. A 
fearful game was ready for playing in this Paris Pande- 
monium, or City of all the Devils. Yet the night was warm 
and clear and calm. 

Petion, the popular mayor of Paris for the moment, had 
been to see the king, and by a manoeuvre was detained in 
the garden of the Tuileries, so that the Hotel de Ville was 
left without a mayor, who until four o'clock in the morning 
walked the garden under the stars. Then the Legislative 
Assembly, which had been sitting all night, heard of his 
plight and sent for him to give an account of Paris, of 
which, of course, he knew nothing. 

That night there was little sleep in the palace. Its apart- 
ments were crowded. Seven hundred gentlemen had been 
summoned to die with or for their king. Among them was. 
old Marshal Maille, past eighty years of age. Then the 
alarm rang out from all the steeples, among them that of St. 
Germain I'Auxerrois, which had rung the signal for the St. 
Bartholomew two hundred and twenty years (all but fourteen 
days) before. 



THE TENTH OF AUGUST. 173 

At the Hotel de Ville, meantime, there was a revolution ; 
the municipal authorities were put out, and new men were 
put in their places, Danton among them being chief. 

In this manner waned the slow night, amid threats, 
anxiety, and the sounding of the tocsin; men's temper rising 
to the hysterical pitch ; but, as yet, nothing was done. Few 
people, one imagines, slept that night in Paris, but the king 
lay down in his clothes, rubbing the powder out of his hair 
on the side that his head had pressed the pillow. 

Three times the new municipal government at the Hotel 
de Ville had sent for Commandant Mandat, who, they heard, 
had issued orders to the National Guard that, if attacked, 
they were to fire on the populace. At last he obeyed the 
summons, and was at once ordered off to prison. He never 
reached it ; for on the steps of the Hotel de Ville the mob 
snatched him from the gendarmes and tore him to pieces. 

Seventeen persons were taken up as suspicious characters 
in the Champs Elys^es and carried to the guard-house of 
the Legislative Assembly. Eleven of these promptly made 
their escape ; then two more got away in the confusion. 
The remaining four were massacred. All this was in the 
dawn of the loth of August. 

Meantime the National Guards at the Tuileries, having 
lost Mandat, their commander, were without orders, and, hav- 
ing stood in their ranks all night without food or sleep, they 
went off to their own homes. The queen was led to a 
window by Madame Elisabeth, and they stood watching the 
sun rise gloriously over the Jacobin Church, and the roofs 
of the southeastern quarter. Before the National Guard 
dispersed, the king went down into the Carrousel with old 
Marshal Maill6, to review the troops, still stationed there to 
defend him. Not a voice cried Vive le roi ! but there were 
growls of Vive la natio?i ! Then he knew that hope was over. 

The tocsin brought the Sections from all quarters of the 
city. They were led on by the Marseillais. The can- 
noneers in the Carrousel refused to fire on the mob. Then 
there remained for the royal family but one chance of per- 
sonal safety. The king was implored to seek refuge under 



174 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

the roof of the Legislative Assembly. He sat some time in 
silence, his hands upon his knees, his body bent forwards, 
and gazed fixedly into space. Then, looking over his 
shoulder to the queen, who stood behind him, he said, 
" Let us go." 

King Louis, the queen, sister Elisabeth, the two royal 
children, the Princesse de Lamballe, and their governess 
then left the Tuileries, to which one only was ever to return. 
They were attended by officers of the popular party and a 
double rank of National Guards, the steady Swiss Guards 
gazing mournfully and reproachfully after them, for no orders 
had been given them, and they were left deserted. 

Oh ! ye staunch Swiss ! Oh ! ye gallant gentlemen in 
black ! for what a cause are ye to spend and to be spent ! 
Look out from the western windows. Ye may see King 
Louis placidly holding on his way, the poor little Prince 
Royal sportively kicking the fallen leaves. Frenzied men, 
crowding behind the guards, are ready to tear them all from 
their defenders. But a deputation of legislators comes out 
of the hall, and royalty in safety ascends the staircase, a blue 
grenadier lifting the poor little Prince in his arms. 

All in the Chateau is now uncertainty and confusion. 
The courtiers in black disappear, mostly through such side- 
issues as they can. The poor Swiss know not how to act. 
One duty only was clear to them, That of standing to their 
post. They will perform that. 

The mob arrives, breaks in, and fills the Court of the 
Carrousel. The black-browed Marseillais are in the van. 
Suddenly there is a roar from the three Marseillaise cannon. 
It was eight in the morning.^ 

The Swiss, who had stood to their posts, but peacefully, 
responded to the cannon-shot by a rolling fire of musketry. 
Not a few of the Marseillais, after their long, dusty march, have 
made halt there. The mob, exposed to fire, is driven back. 

But they ralhed with vengeance in their hearts ; and from 

1 At that sound Thomas Griffith awoke, and he saw what hap- 
pened afterwards. 




MADAME ELISABETH. 



THE TENTH OF AUGUST. 



175 



all patriot artillery, great and small, roared a responsive 
whirlwind. Then came an order carried by some brave 
man from the Legislative Hall to the Swiss to cease firing. 
Alas ! it was too late. Terror and fury ruled the hour. 
The Swiss, pressed in on from without, paralyzed from 
within, ceased to shoot, but not to be shot. One party of 
them, attempting to fly by a back street, was utterly destroyed. 
Another, rushing through fire to the Legislative Assembly, 
found refuge on its back benches ; three hundred darted 
out in column, and hoped by way of the Champs Elysees 
to reach the Swiss barracks at Courbevoie, where other 
Swiss had been stationed to aid in the escape of the king. 

Then came firing, and murdering in the streets. House 
porters who were called Swisses in those days were shot 
down, whether Swiss or Frenchmen. Some Swiss found 
refuge in private houses, and the Marseillais, so fierce 
of late, were eager to save some of them. One man, 
Clemence, a wine merchant, stumbled forward to the bar 
of the Assembly, holding a rescued Swiss by the hand ; 
telling passionately how he had succored him with pain and 
peril, how he will henceforth support him, being childless, 
and then fell in a swoon, embracing the poor Swiss, at 
which the Assembly applauded. But most of the Swiss 
were butchered. Fifty, some say fourscore, were marched 
as prisoners to the Hotel de Ville, but the ferocious people 
burst through their guards and massacred all of them. 

Surely few things in the history of carnage are more 
painful than this massacre of the Swiss. Honor to you, 
brave men ! — and pity through all time ! He was no king 
of yours, — this Louis ! — and he forsook you ! Ye were 
but sold to him for some poor sixpence a day. Yet ye would 
do work for your wages, and kept your plighted word. Let 
the traveller as he passes through Lucerne turn aside to look 
a little at their monumental Lion. Not for Thorwaldsen's 
sake alone. Hewn out of living rock, the figure rests there 
by the still calm waters, the granite mountains keeping watch 
all round. ^ 

1 Cf. Carlyle's " French Revolution." 



176 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Meantime patriot onlookers and others gazed on the 
dreadful scene across the Seine (Thomas Griffith among 
them). But there was another young man looking on who 
thought that had the Swiss had any stout man to command 
them, they might have beaten back the mob after its first 
repulse. He was a man well qualified to judge ; a young 
lieutenant of artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte, who ever after 
had the sincerest pity for King Louis and his family, and 
contempt and detestation for popular mobs. 

It is strange to reflect that while these things went on, on 
the I oth of August in Paris, men and women were carrying 
on their own affairs : women were busy with their children 
and their housekeeping, men were breakfasting in cafes. 
Even Mr. Morris, who had invited a party of guests that day 
to dine with him, records in his journal that he welcomed 
them with regrets and apologies for the spoiling of his fish, 
owing to the extreme heat of the weather. 

On that day, the loth of August, 1792, the Revolution was 
consummated; monarchy, and the Constitution which the 
Constituent Assembly had been at such pains to put on 
paper, were both swept away. The government of France 
fell into the hands of a self-constituted executive body, the 
Committee of Public Safety. 

Real danger from foreign potentates was threatening 
France. Prussia and Austria had armies in the field ; and 
from fifteen to twenty thousand emigrant gentlemen, all 
members of the aristocracy of France, with the king's brothers 
at their head, were on the Rhine at Coblentz, only waiting 
for the Duke of Brunswick, their commander in chief, to lead 
them on. Paris had been for some months in a ferment, wild 
with what it was pleased to call patriotism ; La Vendee, faith- 
ful to the cause of its king and of its priests, was up in arms. 

The populace of Paris when " in a ferment " is simply " off 
its head ; " its one idea is treason. Unhappily during the 
summer of 1792 the king had found it impossible to sign two 
bills passed by the Legislative Assembly. One was a decree 
for banishing all priests who would not violate their consecra- 
tion oaths and renounce obedience to the Pope, by taking 



THE TENTH OF AUGUST. I 'J J 

the oath required by the Constitution ; the other was to 
authorize the formation of a camp on the outskirts of Paris 
of twenty-five thousand picked patriot volunteers. 

The king used his power of veto, and defeated for a time 
these two measures. Then rose all over Paris that song of 
^a ira, one verse of which is as follows : — 

" Madame Veto m'a promis 
De faire egorger tout Paris ! 

Dansons la Carmagnole ! Dansons la Carmagnole ! 
Dansons la Carmagnole ! 
Et 9a ira ! " 1 

The country by a decree of the Assembly had already 
been pronounced to be in danger. All its chief generals, 
notably Lafayette, were suspected of being traitors. Each 
municipal official sat in the middle of his section in a tent 
erected in some open space, over which waved a flag in- 
scribed, The Country is in Danger ; and topmost stuck a 
pike surmounted by a bonnet rouge. Before him was a plank 
table, and on it was an open book, behind which sat a clerk 
like a recording angel, ready to write down the names of those 
in the section who were ready to enlist, and save the country. 

Excitement rose to fever heat when the celebrated procla- 
mation of Brunswick appeared. It said that all Frenchmen 
who did not instantly submit and join his forces should be 
declared traitors. Any National Guard or civilian, found in 
arms resisting the German forces, should be promptly hanged. 
And if Paris, before Brunswick reached it, should have 
offered any further insult to the king, Paris should be blasted 
asunder with cannon-shot and mihtary execution, while the 
like ruin should fall on all cities that refused to submit; 
they should be left smoking ruins. 

1 They even named a frigate the " Qa ira." She came into Boston har- 
bor during the days when the truculent Citizen Genet was ambassador 
at Washington, hoping to arouse Revolutionary fervor. It is said that 
her captain nailed to his mainmast a list of Boston aristocrats who 
should be guillotined. But the large family of Amory proving too 
long to enumerate, he ended his list of proscription with " Et tous les 
Amorys." 

12 



178 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

In the midst of this excitement the Marseillais, eight hun- 
dred strong, had arrived in Paris, singing their heart-stirring 
song. On Sunday, August 5, — five days before the fatal 
loth of August, — King Louis held at the Tuileries his last 
levee. Never had a levee been so crowded. But sad anxiety 
sat on every face, and many eyes were filled with tears ; 
while outside the tricolored ribbons, which guarded the 
approaches to the palace, the legislature was debating, 
Sections were defiUng, and all Paris was astir demand- 
ing decheance; that is, the king's deposition. Within the 
ribbon, however, a proposal was on foot for the hundredth 
time, that of carrying off his Majesty to Rouen and ihe old 
Chateau Gaillon. The Swiss Guard at Courbevoie was all 
ready. His Majesty himself was <2//«(?j-/ ready. Nevertheless, 
for the hundredth time he, when the point for action had been 
reached, drew back, and wrote, after his faithful servants had 
waited palpitating, an endless summer day, that " he had 
reasons to beUeve the insurrection was not so ripe as they 
supposed." 

All this, if it cannot justify the rising of the lOth of August, 
at least enables us to give some reasons why popular excite- 
ment rose to fury against the king ; but there was neither 
reason nor excuse for the murders perpetrated by munici- 
pal connivance at the prisons, twenty-three days later, on 
Sept. 2 and 3, 1792. For these murders Danton must be 
held primarily responsible ; and the only excuse ever given 
was that the volunteers about to set forward to the frontier 
wished to strike a blow which should paralyze with terror all 
aristocrats in Paris, and sweep away hundreds of those who 
in the event of a counter-revolution might jeopardize the 
safety of the wives and children whom they left behind. 

It is thought that 1,089 prisoners were massacred in the 
prisons of the Abbaye and La Force, besides those in the 
Bicetre, which was taken by storm. Three men who es- 
caped death in the two former prisons have written accounts 
of their personal experience, — Jourgniac, a soldier, Maton, a 
lawyer, and the Abb6 Sicard, a distinguished teacher of the 
deaf and dumb. 



THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES. 



179 



Jourgniac says : '' Towards seven o'clock on Sunday night 
of September 2, I, being in prison in tlie Abbaye, saw two 
men enter our room. Their hands were all bloody, and 
they were armed with swords. A turnkey with a torch 
lighted them. He pointed to the bed of Reding, a wounded 
Swiss, who was one of us. Reding spoke with a dying 
voice. One of the men paused, but the other cried, ' Allons 
done ! ' He lifted the unfortunate Swiss from his bed, and 
carried him out on his back to the street. He was butchered 
there. We all looked at one another without speaking. 
We clasped each other's hands. Every man looked down 
in silence on the prison pavement, on which lay the moon- 
light checkered by the shadows of the triple stanchions of 
our window. At three in the morning we heard them 
breaking in one of the prison doors. Our first thought was, 
that they were coming to kill us in our room. Then we 
heard by voices on the staircase that they were attacking a 
room in which some prisoners had barricaded themselves. 
They were all butchered there, as we shortly gathered from 
words and cries. 

" At ten o'clock the Abbe Lenfant and the Abbe de Chapt- 
Rastignac appeared in the pulpit of the chapel (then used 
as part of our prison). They had entered by a door from 
the stairs. They told us simply that our end was at hand, 
that we must compose ourselves and receive their last 
blessing. As if by an electric shock, — an impulse not to 
be defined, — we all fell on our knees, and we received the 
blessing. It was a solemn moment, a scene never to be for- 
gotten, — those two old men with white hair blessing us from 
the pulpit above us, death hovering over our heads awaiting 
us and them. Half an hour after, these priests were both 
murdered, and we heard their cries." 

Maton, the lawyer, who was in the prison of La Force, 
says that "at seven o'clock on Sunday night," the same hour 
at which Jourgniac in the Abbaye commenced his narrative, 
"prisoners began to be frequently called out from among us, 
and they did not reappear. We wondered what this might 
mean. Each man had his own opinion, but the majority 



l8o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

of US were persuaded that the memorial I had drawn up 
for the National Assembly was having its effect, and that 
we were about to be liberated. At one in the morning 
the iron door which led into our corridor was opened 
anew. Four men in uniform, each with a naked sword 
and blazing torch, came up the passage preceded by a 
turnkey. They were in search of the adventurer La Motte, 
husband of the woman who had planned the swindle of 
the diamond necklace, but they did not find him. We 
heard them say, ' Come, let us search among the corpses.' 
Imagine what terror these words, ' Let us search among 
the corpses,' threw us into. I saw nothing for it but to resign 
myself to die. I wrote my last will, concluding it by an 
earnest petition that the paper should be sent to its address. 
Scarcely had I laid down the pen when there came in two 
other men in uniform. One of them, whose arm and sleeve 
up to the very shoulder were covered with blood, said he 
'was as tired as a hodman who had been beating plaster.* 
An old man was called out. Sixty years of virtuous life 
could not now save him. They said : ' A 1' Abbaye ! ' — which 
was, in fact, his death sentence. He passed out of the outer 
gate, gave a cry of terror at sight of the heaped corpses, 
covered his eyes with his hands, and died of innumerable 
wounds. At every fresh opening of the grate I thought I 
should hear my own name called and see my murderers 
enter. I flung off my night-clothes ; I put on a coarse 
dirty shirt, a worn coat, no waistcoat, and an old round 
hat. These things I had sent for a few days before, in fear 
of what might happen. The rooms on our corridor had 
been all emptied except ours. We were four together whom 
they seemed to have forgotten. We all prayed together 
to be delivered from our peril. Baptiste, our turnkey, came 
up by himself to see us. I took him by the hands. I con- 
jured him to save us. I promised him a hundred louis 
if he would take me home. A noise coming from the 
outside gate made him leave us hastily. The noise was 
made by a dozen or fifteen men armed to the teeth. We 
lay flat to escape observation. We had seen them from our 



THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES. l8l 

window. We heard them cry, ' Upstairs ! Let not one 
escape ! ' I took out my penknife, and considered where 
I should stab myself. Then I reflected that the blade was 
much too short, and also on religion. 

" At last on Monday morning, September 3, between seven 
and eight o'clock, four men came in with sabres and blud- 
geons. To one of them Gerard, my fellow-townsman, 
whispered earnestly. The result was that his bribes and 
promises induced them to spare three of us. Me they 
would not spare. Four sabres were crossed over ray breast, 
and they led me down. I was brought to their bar before 
a personage wearing the tricolored scarf, a sign he was 
in oflice, who was sitting as judge. He was a lame man, 
lank and tall. He recognized me seven months after in 
the street, and spoke to me. I have heard his name was 
Chepy, and that he was the son of a retired attorney. 
Crossing the court, I saw Manuel, who was anxious to save 
some of the prisoners, haranguing in his tricolored scarf." 

Maton went through a species of trial which, by favor 
of Chepy, ended, not in assassination, but in what he calls 
his " resurrection." 

The Abbe Sicard was in the inolon ; that is, a small prison 
cell near the guard-house. About three o'clock Monday 
morning the killefs bethought them of this violon, and 
began knocking at it from the courtyard. " There were 
three of us," says the Abbd Sicard, "in this httle place. 
My companions thought that they perceived a kind of 
loft overhead. But the ceiling was very high ; only one 
of us could reach it by mounting on the shoulders of both 
the others. One of them said to me that ray life was more 
useful than theirs. I resisted. They insisted. They would 
take no denial. I flung myself on the neck of these two 
deliverers. Never was scene more touching. I mounted 
on the shoulders of the first, then on those of the second ; 
finally I was in the loft, whence I addressed to my two com- 
rades the expression of a soul filled with natural emotions." 

We are thankful to learn that those two generous com- 
panions did not perish. The Abbe Sicard was not found 



1 82 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

in his hiding-place. Jourgniac was brought before the 
Tribunal. He had gained over one of his guards by speak- 
ing Provengal to him. He saw old Marshal Maille tried and 
sentenced. The marshal was eighty years old, the same who 
three weeks before had gone forth from the Tuileries with 
the king to address the troops in the Carrousel. The 
presiding judge, a man in gray, was either more merciful 
than his associates, or he was weary of his work, or Jour- 
gniac's defence really moved him. When he had ended 
his cross-examination he took off his hat and said : " I see 
nothing to suspect in this man. I am for giving him his 
liberty. Is that your vote?" To which all the judges 
answered: '■^Oui! Old! It is just!" Then arose shouts 
within doors and without. The prisoner was escorted forth 
by three men with shoutings and embracings. Thus Jour- 
gniac "escaped," as he says himself, "out of trial by jury 
and the jaws of death." 

And all this time, in one of the courtyards of the Abbaye, 
Billaud-Varennes, a member of the existing government and 
one of the leading deputies from the Assembly, in his tight 
puce-colored coat, black wig, and scarf of office, was stand- 
ing among the corpses haranguing the kille7's, — ■ les tueicrs, — 
for that was the name by which they were known. " Brave 
citizens," he cried, "you are extirpating the enemies of 
Liberty ! You are doing your duty. A grateful Commune 
and Country would wish to recompense you adequately, but 
cannot, for you know its want of funds. Whosoever shall 
have worked in a prison shall receive a draft for One louis. 
Continue your work ! '' 

The pay-roll of those dreadful days of massacre is in 
existence to this day. 

Nor were these massacres of September 2 and 3 the only 
work done by the killers. Less than a week later, on Sunday, 
September 9, a body of them went out to Versailles, and 
there earned more blood-money and the thanks of a grate- 
ful Committee of Public Safety. Mr. Griffith has told us 
how he met them on his way to Versailles returning to Paris, 
with bloody heads on pikes, and was constrained to applaud 
their villany. 



THE SEPTEMBER MASSACRES. 1 83 

A number of prisoners had been sent to Orleans to be 
tried as state criminals ; among them was a whole cabinet of 
the king's late ministers. But the new authorities thought 
that they should be brought up to the capital, that so the end 
might be quicker. A wretch, who called himself Fournier 
the American, because he was born in Martinique, was sent 
down to Orl(§ans to bring to Paris these fifty-three prisoners. 
When nearing Paris, he heard of the September massacres, 
and was advised (or received orders) to stop at Versailles. 
The prisoners travelled in country carts, their guards, some 
on horseback and some on foot, marching around them. At 
the last village the good mayor of Versailles came out to meet 
them, being anxious for their safety. It was Sunday, Sep- 
tember 9, and Versailles was full of murderers, who had done 
their work in Paris six days before, and had marched out to 
Versailles in the expectation that more awaited them. As 
the procession entered the broad Avenue of Versailles, with 
its four rows of great trees, the prisoners found it swarming 
with ferocious men, awaiting their arrival. Through this 
crowd the tumbrils and their guards made their way with dif- 
ficulty ; " the Mayor," says Carlyle, "speaking and gesturing 
his persuasivest amid the inarticulate growling hum, which 
growls ever the deeper even by hearing itself growl, not 
without sharp yelpings here and there." 

At last the procession turned into a narrow street, and 
here the mob had the prisoners at a disadvantage. The 
murmur and the yelpings became a continuous yell ; savage 
figures sprang on to the shafts of the tumbrils, — the first 
spray of an endless coming tide ! The mayor pleaded and 
pushed, half desperate. He was thrown down and carried 
off in men's arras. Amid horrid noise and tumult as of fierce 
wolves, the prisoners sank massacred, — ■ all but eleven, who 
escaped into houses and found mercy. The prisons, and 
what other prisoners they held, were with difficulty saved. 
The clothes stripped from the dead were burned in bonfires. 
The corpses lay heaped in the gutters till the next day. 

And thus it was when Mr. Griffith and M. de Coulanges 
drove at nightfall into Versailles. 



CHAPTER IV. 

J THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE.^ 

npHE Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Therese Louise de Sa- 
■'- voie-Carignan, was the daughter of Prince Louis Victor 
Joseph, of the house of Savoy-Carignan, fourth in descent 
from Cliarles Emmanuel L, Duke of Savoy. She was also 
first cousin on her mother's side of Victor Amadeus III., King 
of Sardinia. It may be further stated for the relief of those 
who dislike climbing genealogical trees, that she was the 
great-grand-aunt of Victor Emmanuel, // Re Galantuomo, 
first king of United Italy. Born in September, 1749, she 
received as she grew up a careful education. Before she had 
completed her seventeenth year, it had been arranged be- 
tween the courts of Versailles and Turin that she should 
marry the Prince de Lamballe, a great-grandson of Louis 
XIV. and Madame de Montespan. 

The Due de Penthievre, father of the Prince de Lamballe, 
was the richest subject in France, his yearly income amount- 
ing to five millions of francs. He was now a widower with 
two children, a son and a daughter. His disposition was 
grave almost to melancholy. The pleasures of the world 
were distasteful to him ; and although holding the office of 
High Admiral of France, he seldom appeared at court. His 
time seems to have been spent in attending to his religious 
duties and assisting the needy on his various estates, which 
he visited in regular succession. A more confirmed rake 
than his son, the Prince de Lamballe, was not to be found ; 
it was with a view of steadying him, if possible, that his father 
persuaded him to marry. The monotony of domestic life, 
however, soon wearied the Prince de Lamballe, and he re- 

1 From an article in " Temple Bar." 





PBINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 



THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 1 85 

turned to his old habits. The vicious example of his cousin, 
the Due de Chartres, encouraged him in this course till 
death cut short his disreputable career. 

After a short time spent in retirement in the Abbaye de 
St. Antoine, the young widow joined her father-in-law and 
his daughter at the Chateau de Rambouillet. Here she 
threw herself with zest into the simple amusements of coun- 
try life, gardening with Mademoiselle de Penthievre, reading 
with the poet Florian (a member of the household), and sec- 
onding the duke in his deeds of benevolence. He used 
sometimes to call her Marie la folk, so exuberant were her 
spirits in those days. 

When Marie Antoinette became dauphine of France, in 
1770, she found sympathy and friendship in the Princesse de 
Lamballe, five years older than herself. It was a welcome 
surprise to meet this good, sweet-tempered, sprightly com- 
panion in a court at once formal and corrupt. On be- 
coming queen she revived, in favor of the princess, the 
lucrative office of superintendent of the household of the 
queen, a post which as a piece of state economy had been 
abolished some years before. This led to animadversion and 
grumbling in several quarters. 

The close friendship between the queen and the princess 
was for a short time ruffled by the fancy taken up by the 
former for a far less worthy favorite, Madame de Polignac. 
This lady till then had been living in needy obscurity. She 
was by the queen's favor advanced to an important post 
at court; and her husband, Comte Jules de Polignac, was 
created a duke and appointed director-general of the posts, 
a lucrative position. 

Madame d'Oberkirch, an Alsatian lady, who travelled in 
1782 with the Grand Duke Peter and his charming wife 
(bom Princess Dorothy of Montbelliard), thus writes to the 
grand duchess, her friend and former school-fellow : — 

" The Princesse de Lamballe is very pretty, though her 
features are not regular. She is lively and playful, but without, 
I should say, much talent. She avoids discussions, and agrees 
with you at once rather than embark on an argument. She is 



1 86 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

a sweet, kind, obliging woman, incapal^le of an evil thought. 
The shaft of calumny has always failed to reach her. A widow 
at nineteen, she has since devoted herself entirely to her father- 
in-law and the queen. She gives immensely in charity, more 
than she can afford, often depriving herself of many things that 
she may the more effectually assist the poor. She is called 
' the o-ood angel ' by the people on the different estates of the 
Due de Penthievre." 

Meantime the Revolution was approaching. The mutter- 
ings of the coming storm, long heard in the distance, sounded 
louder and nearer. The Comte d'Artois and many of the 
nobles hastened to emigrate. The Polignacs escaped to the 
frontier under a feigned name. 

On the evening of the 21st of June, 1791, the day of 
the king's flight to Varennes, Madame de Lamballe set out 
for Aumale, where the Due de Penthievre and his daughter, 
the Duchesse d'Orleans ^ (mother of Louis Philippe), were 
living. Quickly explaining what had taken place, she urged 
them to accompany her in her flight to England, whence 
she hoped to rejoin the queen ; but as they were not to be 
persuaded, she was off again as soon as her horses had been 
changed. She reached Boulogne the following morning, 
and, finding an English ship about to sail for Dover, she 
embarked immediately. At Dover she stayed two days, and 
then proceeded via Ostend to Brussels, where she received 
news from the Count de Fersen of the capture of the royal 
party at Varennes. Her first impulse was to go back to 
France without delay, but those about her who were building 

1 This lady, divorced from her dissolute husband, lived after- 
wards in great poverty at Genoa. My father in 1810 was asked by 
the admiral at Gibraltar to carry her a box of valuables without 
charging freight on it, the perquisite of captains of men-of-war who 
undertook the responsibility of conveying specie or jewelry. "The 
poor old lady can't afford to pay," said the admiral. My father 
gladly undertook the commission, and used to give an amusing ac- 
count of being invited by the duchess to dinner. The state was 
great, the viands scanty, and the story always ended with, " Luckily 
I was dismissed in time to get on board Sir Charles Cotton's ship, and 
eat a supplementary dinner." — E. W. L. 



THE PR INC ESSE DE LAMBALLE. 187 

their hopes on the advance of the Duke of Brunswick and 
the emigres., persuaded her to remain at a distance watching 
events. She did not adopt the views of the French emigre 
nobles collected at Coblentz. She shared the distrust which 
the queen had always felt of the Comte de Provence, who 
was already aspiring to the dignity of regent of France ; and 
she knew that the intrigues of the emigre's only irritated the 
Revolutionists, and added to the difficulties of the king, now 
little better than a prisoner in his palace of the Tuileries. 

As time went on, the news from Paris became blacker and 
blacker, and the tone of the queen's letters more hopeless. 
Her Majesty continued to adjure her friend to remain out 
of harm's way ; yet occasionally a cry escaped her which 
proved that she yearned for her presence. There is the 
ring of real despair in the following letter, which the princess 
received on the 13th of October, 1791 : — 

" I am heart-broken at what I see passing around me, and 
can only entreat you not to come back. The present moment 
is too terrible. Although I have courage enough on my own 
account, I cannot help feeling uneasy for my friends, more 
especially for one so precious as you. I do not therefore wish 
you to expose yourself uselessly to danger. It is already as 
much as I can do to face circumstances calmly, at the side of 
the king and my children. Farewell, then, dear heart. Give 
me your pity, since from the very love I bear you your absence 
is perhaps a greater trial to me than it is to you." 

If Madame de Lamballe had hesitated before, hesitation 
was at an end on the receipt of this letter. On the 15 th, 
she made her will ; on the i6th she set out for France. 
Four months had elapsed since she and the queen had been 
parted, and in that brief space what a change had come over 
Marie Antoinette ! She looked ten years older ; her bright 
color had fled ; her hair was gray. She had prepared a gift 
for the princess, which she presented to her on their meet- 
ing. It was a ring containing some of her hair with the in- 
scription, Blanchis par le malheiir. 

Madame de Lamballe at once became an object of suspi- 
cion to the Jacobin party. Everything she did was watched 



1 88 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

and misrepresented. Newspaper attacks on her were fre- 
quent. The pubhc mind was inflamed against her. She 
was able to pay only two brief visits to her father-in-law, the 
Due de Penthievre, after her return. The duke was natu- 
rally averse to her remaining in Paris, but there she conceived 
was her proper post, and thither she returned. When she 
left the duke for the last time, he observed to one of his 
attendants : " My daughter's devotion to the queen is most 
praiseworthy ; but in going back to her she is making a great 
sacrifice, jfe tremble qii'elle n'eji soit victime.'''' 

In all the humiliations and dangers to which the king and 
queen were thenceforth exposed, the Princesse de Lamballe 
shared. When, on the 20th of June, 1792, a rabble army 
of men and women carrying pikes, hatchets, and knives, 
broke into the palace, she was at the queen's side, enduring 
for two long hours their threats and insults. Through the 
anxious night of the 9th of August, when an attack on the 
Tuileries was momentarily expected, she remained with 
the queen and Madame Elisabeth in the cabinet adjoining 
the council-chamber. With them she listened as there broke 
forth from the church towers far and near the sound of the 
tocsin, — the death-knell of the monarchy. After watching 
the sun rise in the sky ominously red, she repaired to her 
own rooms, where her attendants were collected, awaiting 
events. She stood a moment at a window overlooking the 
Pont Royal, and gazed at the excited crowds hurrying along 
the quays. One of her ladies now observed a cloud on the 
princess's usually cheerful face, and, thinking to encourage 
her, said : " Let us hope that the day of our deliverance has 
at last come ; the king's adherents are more numerous than 
you think ; " and she pointed to the soldiers guarding the 
bridge, picked men from the battalion of the Filles St. 
Thomas, the only loyal section of the National Guard. But 
the princess's eyes filled with tears as she answered : " No, 
no ; nothing can save us now. I feel that we are lost." 

As daylight increased, the beating of drums and rumble of 
the cannon of the Marseillais announced the approach of the 
insurgents. About seven, Louis XVI. yielded to the advice 



THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 1 89 

of those around him and quitted the palace with his family, 
to seek the treacherous protection of the Assembly. Madame 
de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel were the only ladies 
permitted to go with them. On entering the Assembly, the 
king took his seat beside the president. The queen, the 
children, and the ladies were conducted to the benches 
reserved for foreign ministers, but, one of the deputies object- 
ing to the presence of the sovereign during a debate, they 
were removed to the loge du logographe, or reporter's box, — . 
a sort of cage, ten feet square, railed off from the hall. 
Hardly had this change been made, when the roar of cannon 
and the rattle of musketry proved that the conflict at the 
palace had begun. The din increased each moment. The 
walls and roof of the Assembly were struck by bullets ; the 
doors were assailed with violence ; there was a panic among 
the deputies, many of whom sprang from their seats in alarm. 
Presently cries of victory were heard from without. A mes- 
senger burst in to announce that the palace was in the hands 
of the populace, and that the Swiss Guards were in flight. 
Thereupon from the hall and from the galleries rose shouts 
of " Vive la nation ! Vive la hberte ! " 

The heat in the reporter's box on that long summer day was 
suffocating. The royal family and the two ladies remained 
there sixteen hours, during which a decree was passed suspend- 
ing the authority of the king. It was not till one o'clock in 
the morning of the nth that they were taken to an adjacent 
building, where four small rooms had been prepared for them. 

Madame de Tourzel was in great anxiety about her daugh- 
ter Pauline, a girl of seventeen, who had been left in the 
Tuileries. Happily she was safe, and during this day ob- 
tained leave to join her mother. 

By nine o'clock the party was back again in the reporter's 
box. Dr. John Moore, an Englishman, then in Paris, who 
saw them on this day, thus describes them : ^ — 

" From the place where I sat I could not see the king, but I 
had a full view of the queen. Her beauty is gone. No wonder ! 

1 Dr. Moore's account agrees minutely with Mr. Griffith's. 



I go THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

She seemed to listen with an undisturbed air to the speakers. 
Sometimes she whispered to her sister-in-law or to the Princesse 
de Lamballe. Once or twice she stood up, and leaning forward 
surveyed every part of the hall. A person near me remarked 
that her face indicated rage and the most provoking arrogance. 
I perceived nothing of that nature, although the turn of the 
debate, as well as the remarks made by some of the members, 
must have appeared to her highly insolent. On the whole, her 
behavior in this most trying situation was full of propriety and 
dignified composure." 

The following day, Sunday, was spent in like manner ; on 
Monday they were removed to the Temple. Pe'tion, the 
mayor, and Manuel, the prociireiir of the Commune, accom- 
panied them. 

A dense crowd lined the streets. In the Place Vendome 
there was a halt that the king and his party might witness the 
overthrow of the statue of Louis XIV., to be succeeded ten 
years later by the column to the Victories of France, under 
Napoleon Bonaparte. 

It was dusk when the sad party reached the Temple, which, 
prison though it was, must have seemed to them a refuge. 
The queen, on hearing that they were to be removed to the 
Temple, had implored Madame de Lamballe to leave her 
and seek an asylum with the Due de Penthievre or in 
England ; but the princess, constant in her devotion, refused. 
She was not suffered long to remain the stay and comforter 
of her royal friend. A week later, on the 19th of August, 
municipal officers carried off the princess and Madame de 
Tourzel, saying they were wanted at the Hotel de Ville to be 
examined concerning some secret correspondence. The 
parting of Marie Antoinette and of Madame Elisabeth from 
the friends who had shared both their jDrosperity and adver- 
sity was heart-rending. "They clung together," says Hue 
(a valet of the king, who was present), " with arms intertwined, 
uttering des tendres et decJiir antes adieux.'''' 

After a brief examination at the Hotel de Ville, the two 
ladies and Pauline were taken to the prison of La Force. 
This prison, traces of which have been long swept away. 



THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 



191 



consisted of two separate buildings in one enclosure, the 
Grande and the Petite Force. In the latter, where only 
women were confined, principally thieves and debtors, the 
three ladies were placed in different cells ; but the next day, 
on Manuel's visiting them, he yielded to their joint entreaties 
and reunited them in one good-sized room. Here they 
passed ten days together. 

On the 19th of August, news reached Paris that the Prus- 
sians had taken Longwy on their march to the capital. The 
fury of the populace passed all bounds. The gates of Paris 
were closed, and hundreds of suspected persons were thrown 
into prison. The Commune (that is, the municipality at the 
Hotel de Ville) assumed the government ; and the Assembly, 
completely awed, neither remonstrated nor objected. 

When the Due de Penthievre, after an interval of terrible 
suspense, learned that his daughter-in-law had been removed 
to La Force, he sent a messenger to Manuel offering him 
any sum he chose to name for her release. Overtures of the 
like nature in favor of the Tourzels are believed to have 
been made by members of their family. 

At midnight on Saturday, the ist September, as the pris- 
oners were asleep, the door of their room was opened, and 
a voice said, " Mademoiselle de Tourzel, get up at once and 
follow me." It was no time to ask questions ; Pauline rose, 
and, having dressed with all speed, went out. She found a 
member of the Commune named Hardy awaiting her. He 
took her to a room below, gave her a peasant's costume, 
which she shpped over her own clothes, and led her away. 

" You can imagine," writes Madame de Tourzel subse- 
quently, in a letter describing these events, " whether I slept 
again or not after Pauline was gone. When our breakfast 
was brought we were told that Paris had been in a state of 
commotion since the previous evening, that massacres were 
expected, that the prisons were threatened, — indeed, that 
many had been broken into already. I then felt sure that it 
was in order to save Pauline that they had removed her, 
and my only remaining regret was at not knowing whither 
she had been taken. I saw plainly enough the fate in store 



192 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



for the Princesse de Lamballe and myself. I will not say 
that I saw it without dread, but I was able to endure the 
idea at least with resignation. It seemed to me that pres- 
ence of mind alone would enable me to surmount the dan- 
gers before me, and I ceased to think of anything except 
how to preserve it. This was by no means easy, for the 
extreme agitation of my unhappy companion, the questions 
she kept asking me, the terrible conjectures she formed, 
almost deprived me of what courage I had. I tried to 
reassure and calm her ; but finding this impossible, I 
proposed that we should cease talking, since we only in- 
creased our fears by exchanging them." 

Towards evening the two were suddenly summoned and 
taken down into a courtyard, "where," says Madame de 
Tourzel, " were many other prisoners, and a multitude of 
shabbily clad, savage-looking men, most of whom were 
drunk." 

As they stood there bewildered, a man with a more respec- 
table air than the rest approached Madame de Tourzel, and 
let drop the words, " Your daughter is saved." The speaker 
was none other than Hardy, who had rescued Pauline the 
night before. In her brief colloquy with him and other 
bystanders, Madame de Tourzel had her attention occupied 
a few moments. When she looked round the princess had 
disappeared. 

The courtyard was getting emptied by degrees. The 
prisoners, she was told, were being taken one by one to 
undergo a trial, after which they were either let off or killed 
by the people stationed outside. At length she was herself 
called and led before the judges. The knowledge that 
Pauline was safe, and that her own rescue was intended by 
Hardy, for so he had informed her, gave her courage. Her 
interrogation over. Hardy and ten others surrounded her 
and conducted her into the street, where the ruffians em- 
ployed to butcher the defenceless prisoners were collected. 
A cry was raised that an aristocrat was being allowed to 
escape ; but, thanks to the boldness of her escort, Madame 
de Tourzel was dragged unharmed through the mob, and 



THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 193 

hurried forward till z. fiacre was obtained. Into this she was 
pushed, her deHverers mounting after her, some inside and 
some out. They were then driven at full speed to the house 
in which Pauline had taken refuge. On the way there, 
Madame de Tourzel made eager inquiries as to what had 
become of the Princesse de Lamballe ; but at mention of 
that name, Hardy shook his head, and was silent, adding 
after a moment that he would have saved her too, had it 
been in his power. 

By night the prison of La Petite Force was empty. Of 
those shut up there, many had been slain, some liberated, 
and a few transferred to La Grande Force to be dealt with 
later. Among these was the princess, who when Madame 
de Tourzel lost sight of her in the courtyard was already on 
her vvay to her new cell. Her removal from one part of the 
building to another, just when many of her fellow- captives 
were set free, shows that the Commune was determined to 
sacrifice her. That Manuel himself wished to save her 
seems not unlikely ; yet to have pleaded with his ferocious 
colleagues for the life of this particular prisoner, the friend 
of Marie Antoinette, branded with the odious name of Bour- 
bon, might have brought suspicion and ruin on himself. 
He was therefore content with directing some of the hired 
assassins to assist in her rescue, — if occasion offered. 

In this same prison of La Force, on this same Sunday 
night, was the lawyer Maton, who tells us in his narrative 
that " one prisoner after another was torn from us to meet 
his fate. At every opening of the grate I expected to hear 
them call my name." 

About six o'clock on Monday morning (September 3), 
about the time Maton was led before the tribunal and ac- 
quitted, there came a lull. The " killers " had gone to re- 
fresh themselves with wine, and to receive payment from 
the Commune for their night's work. 

Worn out with fatigue, and already half dead from excite- 
ment and fright, the princess flung herself upon her pallet 
and possibly yielded to a hope that all was over. But she 
had not long lain there when the door of her cell was thrown 

13 



194 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

open, and two rough-looking men in the uniform of the 
National Guard entered. They told her to get up and come 
with them directly, as it was intended to remove her to the 
Abbaye. She replied that as all prisons were alike to her, 
she was as ready to remain in her present one as to go to 
another; she entreated them therefore to leave her where 
she was. Upon this they departed, but only to reappear 
after a short absence and inform her that obey she must, for 
her life depended on it. At the same moment the noise 
outside the prison recommenced, and loud cries of " La 
Lamballe ! La Lamballe ! " reached her ears. 

Leaning on the arm of one of the men, — she was too 
weak to walk alone, — she descended to the prison hall, 
where the men acting as judges were seated with the 
jail register open before them. The hall was filled with 
armed executioners, whose hands, faces, and clothes were 
stained with blood ; while from the gateway came the yells 
of the mob, calling for a fresh victim. On entering this 
scene of horror, the princess fainted away and remained in 
that state several minutes upheld by her two conductors. 
She regained her senses presently, but the awful reality to 
which she awoke made her swoon afresh. At length she 
seemed to have revived sufficiently to undergo her interro- 
gation. The following, according to particulars obtained 
from an eye-witness, were the questions asked her and the 
answers she gave : — 

"Your name?" 

"Maria Louisa, Princess of Savoy." 

" Your condition ? " 

" Superintendent of the queen's household." 

"Were you aware of the conspiracies at court on the 
loth of August?" 

"If there were any conspiracies on the loth of August, I 
had no knowledge of them." 

" Then swear to love liberty and equality, and to hate the 
king, queen, and royalty." 

" I will take the first oath, but not the second. It is not 
in my heart." Here somebody standing by — probably 



THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 1 95 

one of Manuel's emissaries — whispered in her ear, " Swear, 
or you are a dead woman." 

The prisoner made no reply, but, raising both her hands, 
pressed them against her eyes as though to shut out some 
hateful vision. At the same time one of the judges gave 
the usual signal of dismission, saying, " Let Madame be set 
at liberty." This sentence, like " Take her to the Abbaye," 
meant that she was condemned. The "princess no doubt 
interpreted the words literally, for, on hearing them, she 
turned and made a step towards the gate. Thereupon two 
of the murderers caught hold of her by either arm, and led 
her out between them, with the intention, it may be, of sav- 
ing her if they could. But on getting outside, among the 
tigers in human form surging around her, on seeing the 
ground strewn with corpses, on hearing the savage yells that 
greeted her appearance, her senses again forsook her, and 
she fell backwards between the men, who continued to drag 
her along. Instantly she received on the head a blow from 
a bludgeon ; this was followed by a stroke from a sabre, and 
then a rain of pike-thrusts brought her to the ground. But 
her martyrdom was not yet complete. Before death came 
to her release she had undergone tortures and indignities 
from which we would willingly avert our eyes, and after death 
her body was treated with unparalleled barbarity and a bru- 
tality too revolting to be here described. 

After the removal of the princess and Madame de Tourzel 
from the Temple, the dauphin had been taught by his mother 
a little prayer for each, which he repeated daily at her knee. 
The first question the king and queen always put to Manuel, 
when he came, as he often did, to visit the Temple, was how 
it fared with the prisoners at La Force, his answer being 
usually that they were en surete, or else tranguilles. The 
latter was his report on the third day of September at eleven 
o'clock. Probably he had not the heart to tell what had 
really happened. 

The king's personal attendant, CMry, vividly describes 
what took place in the Temple that same afternoon : — 

"While the king and queen were at dinner, the beating 



196 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

of drums and the cries of the populace were distinctly 
heard. The royal family quitted the dining-room in con- 
siderable alarm, and assembled in the queen's room, while 
I went down to dine with Tison and his wife, who were on 
service in the Temple. We had hardly taken our seats 
when a head on the point of a pike was held up to the 
window. Tison's wife gave a loud scream. The barbarians 
outside evidently thought it was the queen's voice, for we 
heard them laughing immoderately. Imagining that her 
Majesty must be still at table, the}' held their trophy in such 
a position that had she been in the room she could not 
have helped seeing it. It was the head of the Princesse de 
Lamballe. Although marked with blood, it was not dis- 
figured ; her fair hair, still in curl, waved round the end of 
the pike. I rushed at once to the king. Terror had so 
altered my expression that the queen observed it ; but it was 
important to hide from her the cause. All I wanted was to 
warn the king or Madame Elisabeth. However, there were 
two municipal officers in the room. The queen inquired 
why I was not at dinner. I told her I was not feeling well. 
Just then another officer of the Commune entered, and began 
conferring mysteriously with his colleagues. The king begged 
them to let him know if their lives were in danger. 

" ' The report has got about,' replied they, ' that you and 
your family are no longer in the Temple, and the people are 
calling for you, if you are here, to show yourselves at the 
window. But this we are not going to allow. Good citi- 
zens should display more confidence in their officials.' All 
this time the uproar without went on increasing, and we 
could hear a volley of abusive language levelled at the 
queen. Another officer of the Commune then walked in, 
followed by four men deputed by the people, to certify to 
the presence of the prisoners. One of these last, who wore 
the uniform of a National Guard with epaulettes on his 
shoulders and a long sabre in his hand, insisted that their 
Majesties should appear at the window. The other officers, 
however, still objecting, he brutally addressed the queen : 
' They only want to prevent your seeing La Lamballe's head, 



THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. igy 

which has been brought to let you see how the people avenge 
themselves on their tyrants. I advise you to appear, there- 
fore, unless you wish the people to come up here.' 

" On hearing these words, the queen sank down in a 
fainting-fit. I flew to her assistance, and, with the aid of 
Madame Elisabeth, placed her in a chair, where her chil- 
dren, bursting into tears, strove to bring her to herself. As 
the man who had spoken seemed disposed to linger in the 
room, the king said to him sternly, ' We are prepared for 
anything, monsieur ; but you might have spared the queen 
the knowledge of this terrible calamity.' The fellow then 
departed with his comrades ; their object in coming was 
accomplished." 

There were other hearts to be wrung at tidings of the fate 
of the Princesse de Lamballe besides those of the captives in 
the Temple. News of the crime reached Vernon, where the 
Due de Penthievre was living, at midnight on September 3 ; 
but the old man was not told of it. It was broken gently to 
the Duchesse d'Orleans in the morning ; and she, stifling her 
own anguish as best she could, had to decide how the cruel 
truth should be conveyed to her father, his state of health 
being such that it was thought dangerous to cause him too 
sudden a shock. A plan was at last agreed upon and adopted. 
It was early, — not seven o'clock, — and the duke still slept. 
On awaking he found his daughter, his chaplain, his physician, 
and his secretary, with others of his household, seated in his 
bedroom. He looked inquiringly from face to face ; but no 
one smiled, no one spoke. There was a deep, significant 
silence, broken at length by the sobs of the duchess, who 
had hidden her face in her hands. Then the truth dawned 
on him. His worst fears had been realized ; his cherished 
daughter-in-law was no more. Raising his clasped hands 
heavenwards, he exclaimed, "Oh, my God, thou knowest, 
I think I can have nothing to reproach myself for ! " 

His first emotion over, he became calm ; but from that 
day he drooped and declined. Six months later he was 
carried to his grave. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE KING. 

/^N the one hundredth anniversary of the execution of 
^-^ King Louis XVI., Jan. 21, 1893, the " Figaro," in its 
" Supplement Litteraire," published the most complete and 
authentic account obtainable of his last hours, illustrated 
by copies of the street placards circulated among the popu- 
lace in the streets of Paris. This account is here republished 
in translation. 

An overwhelming majority in the National Convention had, 
on Dec. 26, 1793, pronounced the king guilty of ''treason 
to the nation." Then came the question what should be his 
punishment. All the deputies, seven hundred and forty-nine 
in number, were at their posts, except forty who were absent 
on missions ; and it was voted that the session should not 
close until the question was decided. 

Eye-witnesses have told us of the scene of this third 
voting, and of the votings that grew out of it. The session 
lasted, with a few brief intervals, from Wednesday to Sunday 
morning. Long nights wore into days ; the paleness of the 
morning spread over all faces ; again and again the wintry 
shadows sank, and the dim lamps were lit in the Assembly, 
while member after member mounted the tribune steps to 
speak his fateful word. 

As man after man mounts, the buzz is hushed till he has 
spoken, " Death," " Banishment," or " Imprisonment till 
the Peace." Many say, "Death ; " many too say, "Banish- 
ment." The unhappy Girondists, who would willingly have 
saved the king, are driven by fear for their own lives to vote 



ftl||i|!!i|ilfl|ili:i;iciiyiii!ifii''ii1!^ 




LOUIS XVI. 



TFIE KING. 



199 



for "Death." ManueP voted for "Banishment." Philippe 
Egalite, late the Due d'Orl^ans, the king's cousin, father of 
young Louis Philippe, — then fighting beyond the frontier 
under Dumouriez, — voted for " Death ; " at which word from 
his lips, even the Jacobins shuddered ; and it is said that the 
next man who voted cried aloud : " Citizens ! I had in- 
tended to vote 'Death; ' but I vote 'Banishment,' that my 
vote may not be the same as that of the man who has 
just voted before me ! " 

And yet the scene in the Assembly was not all tragedy. 
The women — the tricoteiises, Dames de la Halle — were 
there in force, applauding every death vote. In the galleries, 
wine and brandy were drunk as if in a saloon. Betting went 
on outside, and in some cases inside of the Hall of the 
Assembly ; but within, for the most part, was restlessness, 
impatience, and the uttermost weariness. On Thursday 
night, when the last vote was being taken, a sick deputy, 
wrapped in blankets and carried in a chair, was brought in 
to vote for mercy, 

Alas ! the vote was death by a small majority of fifty-three. 
If we deduct from the death vote and add to the other the 
twenty-six who said death, but coupled it with some recom- 
mendation to mercy, the majority would have been but One. 

Then brave old Malesherbes, who had asked leave to be 
the king's advocate, pleaded with tears for delay, — for an 
appeal to the people, — but in vain. On Sunday morning, 
January 20, the final vote was taken : " Death within twenty- 
four hours ! " 

On Sunday at three o'clock, three commissioners went 
reluctantly to announce his fate to the king. Their leader, 
Garat, who was much moved, read the sentence. Louis, 
who knew what was coming, drew from his pocket a paper, 
which contained these words : — 

I ask a delay of three days, to enable me to prepare myself 
to appear in the presence of God. 

1 In 1840, forty-eight years after this, I saw Manuel, a tall, spare, 
gray-headed man, sitting on the benches of the Mountain, in the 
Chamber of Deputies. — E. W. L. 



200 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

I ask permission to see without witnesses the person I shall 
designate to the Commissioners of the Commune, and I beg 
that this person may not be subjected to any fear or disquietude 
by reason of the act of charity he may have shown me. 

I ask to be delivered from the perpetual surveillance that the 
Conseil-Gdndral of the Commune has established over me in the 
last few days. 

I ask, during this interval, to be permitted to see my family 
when I may ask for them, and without witnesses. 

I should earnestly desire that the National Convention 
would at once take charge of my family, and would allow 
them to withdraw freely and without indignity to any place 
they may think proper. 

I recommend to the kindness of the nation all the persons 
who have been attached to my service. Many have put all 
they owned into the purchase of their appointments, and must 
now be in great need, as well as those who depended for sup- 
port upon their pensions. Among those who received pensions 
from me there are many old men, women, and children who had 
nothing else to live on. 

Done in the Tower of the Temple, Jan. 20, 1793. 

Louis. 

After having given this paper to one of the commissioners, 
the king gave to another a memorandum in another hand- 
writing than his own. It was the name and address of 
the priest he had chosen to be with him to the last, — 
M. Edgeworth de Firmont, who lived 483 in the Rue de 
Bac. 

The Commissioners went back to the Convention, and 
gave an account of their mission. 

The National Convention then decreed that Louis was 
free to have whatever minister of religion he might choose, 
and to see his family without witnesses. It also declared 
that " the nation, always wise and just, would take care of 
his family." 

It paid no attention to what the king had said with refer- 
ence to his pensioners and retainers ; and it declined to give 
Louis the three days' delay he asked before his execution. 

Then it drew up a placard to be posted on all the walls of 
Paris. 



THE KING. 201 

I. The execution of the sentence on Louis Capet will take 
place to-morrow, Monday, January 21. 

II. The place of execution will be the Place de la Revolu- 
tion, formerly La Place Louis XV., between the pied d''eftal, 
and the Champs Elysees. 

III. Louis Capet will leave the Temple at eight o'clock, so 
that the execution may take place at midday. 

IV. Commissioners of the Department of Paris, Commission- 
ers of the Municipality, and two members of the Criminal Tri- 
bunal, will be present at the execution ; the Secretary of this 
Tribunal will draw up an account, and the Commissioners and 
others, as soon as the execution shall be over, will return to the 
Council, which shall sit until they do so, and give in their 

report. 

The Provisional Council. 
(Signed) 

Roland. CLAvifeRE. Monge. 
Lebrun. Garat. Pasche. 

By Order of the Council Gouvelle. 

The barriers of Paris were ordered to be closed, the Sec- 
tions to be under arms. All citizens were warned to be 
upon their guard against any disorder attempted by the 
enemies of liberty and equality. 

Louis, when the ofificers of the Council had quitted him, 
remained alone for several hours. At first he stood motion- 
less for some time, as if thinking. Then suddenly he 
stamped his foot, and began to walk up and down his 
chamber in much agitation. 

Mercereau, a stone-mason, a rude, rough man, who made 
a point of coming to the Temple as dirty and disorderly as 
possible, was one of the municipal guards on service at the 
Temple that day. Louis walked slowly into the room where 
his guards were stationed, and after a few undecided steps 
he approached the wall, on which a copy of " The Rights of 
Man " was posted. He pointed with his finger to Article 
Eight, which said : — 

" The Law is not to inflict penalties unless they are evi- 
dently and strictly necessary. No one can be punished 
except in virtue of a law passed before his crime was 
committed." 



202 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

" If that article had been followed, many disorders would 
have been spared/' Louis said to Mercereau. 

" True enough," said the man, carelessly. 
■ A few moments after this Louis showed a wish to go to 
his wife. Mercereau would not allow him. Louis insisted, 
saying he was authorized. Mercereau would not yield the 
point, and flatly refused him permission. 

Louis was now indeed separated from his family, — his wife, 
his sister, and his children. From August 13, when they had 
all been carried to the Temple, they at first lived all to- 
gether in the Little Tower; but towards the end of Sep- 
tember the Commune ordered them to be placed in the 
Large Tower. 

This Large Tower was erected about the year 1200 by 
Brother Hubert, a Templar who had inherited a fortune. 
It stands in an enclosure of 120 to 130 hectares ; this en- 
closure includes a variety of buildings of all dates, especially 
the palace of the Grand Prior, erected in 1667. The Comte 
d'Artois lived in it when he was in Paris, and there he 
several times received his sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette, 
after her churchings at Notre Dame. 

The Tower was divided into four stories. The basement 
floor was given up to the municipals ; the first floor {^premier) 
was for the corps de garde ; the next was divided into four 
rooms, — an ante-room, the dining-room, the king's bed- 
chamber, and a tiny one in which Clery slept, — his valet de 
chambre. The story above this was occupied by the queen, 
her children, and the Princess Elisabeth. 

The furniture in the king's rooms was very scanty, — a 
writing-desk, a bureau, four upholstered armchairs, an easy- 
chair, several common straw chairs, and a table. There was 
a looking-glass over the fireplace, and a bed with green 
damask hangings, which had belonged to one of the cap- 
tains in the suite of the Comte d'Artois. There were four 
turrets that ran up the sides of the Tower. One of these, 
adjoining the king's bed-chamber, he used as an oratory; 
another held his wardrobe. One contained the staircase, 
another the firewood. 



THE KING. 203 

About six in the evening, Garat, the minister of justice, 
accompanied by Santerre, the commandant of the National 
Guard, came back to announce to Louis XVI. the resolu- 
tions of the Convention. They brought with them in their 
carriage the priest whom Louis had desired to see. 

When Garat's mission was accomphshed, he and Santerre 
withdrew, and Louis was left alone with the priest. The 
Abbe' Edgeworth de Firmont was of Irish origin. He be- 
longed to the diocese of Paris, and indeed was its vicar- 
general. For some time he had been the spiritual director 
of Madame Ehsabeth, who, foreseeing what might happen 
to her brother, had recommended him. After the massacre 
of priests in September, the Abbe Edgeworth had gone into 
hiding at Choisy-le-Roi, taking the name of Essex. Louis, 
at the beginning of his trial, sent him word, through M. de 
Malesherbes, that he might need his services. The Abbe 
Edgeworth accepted the duty, and changed his lodgings to 
the Rue de Bac. 

The abbe and the king retired to the little chamber in 
the turret which served as an oratory, and remained there 
alone together nearly two hours. 

About half-past eight, Louis's interview with his family 
took place. In view of making the order of the Convention 
(which was that the interview should take place without the 
presence of witnesses) agree with an order of the Commune 
that Louis was not to be left out of sight of his guards for 
one moment, this interview took place in the dining-room, 
which was divided by a glass door from the ante-chamber. 

Marie Antoinette came down first, holding her son by the 
hand ; then Marie Therese and Madame Elisabeth. Louis 
held each long in his embrace. He spoke to them at inter- 
vals ; the princesses sobbed. At a quarter past ten they 
went back to their own chambers, having made the king 
promise that he would see them again in the morning. 

Louis went back to the oratory with his confessor. He 
came out about midnight, and Clery undressed him. 
" Clery, wake me at five o'clock," he said. Then he lay 
down and went to sleep. 



204 ^-^-^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Paris was awakened the next morning by the sound of 
drums. The generale was beaten in all quarters of the city. 
The National Guards assembled in their Sections. The 
greatest precautions had been taken. One hundred and 
fifty thousand men under arms formed a line from the 
Temple to the place of execution. All persons living along 
the route were enjoined to keep their windows closed. 

The new instrument of execution, adopted at the sugges- 
tion of Dr. Guillotin, a member of the Constituent Assembly, 
had already done work on the Place du Carrousel, and was 
now erected on the Place de la Revolution (since 1830 the 
Place de la Concorde). It was put up about fifteen yards 
from the place where the obelisk of Luxor now stands, and 
on the spot where had stood the statue of Louis XV., 
overthrown by the populace on the loth of August. The 
bronze of the statue was then presented to Latyde, so long 
a prisoner in the Bastille and at Vincennes. 

The guillotine was placed on a platform surrounded by a 
railing, and was reached by several steps. The head was 
turned towards the Tuileries. 

The crowd was great, though the weather was bad. The 
night had been cold and rainy, and it was still raining. 

A rumor began to be circulated that the night before a 
member of the Convention, who had voted for the king's 
death, had been stabbed by a royalist. 

A little pamphlet had been circulated, called "The Breviary 
of Parisian Ladies," to oppose the execution of Louis XVI. 
It exhorted the ladies of Paris to dress themselves in mean 
clothes, and to mix in with the terrible Dames de la Halle, 
who stationed themselves round the guillotine, and raise the 
cry of " Pardon ! Pardon ! " on the appearance of the king. 
But the Dames de la Halle got wind of this intention, and 
declared that they should stay at home. 

Louis was sleeping peacefully when at five o'clock Clery 
prepared to light his fire. The noise he made aroused the 
king, who drew his curtain. 

" Has five o'clock struck?" he said. 

" Yes, sire, on several of the town clocks, but not yet on 



THE KING. 205 

ours." The fire being lighted, Clery came to the side of the 
king. 

" I have slept well," said Louis ; " I needed rest. The 
events of yesterday tired me greatly." 

Then he rose. With Clery's assistance he put on a clean 
shirt and gray small-clothes, a white waistcoat, and a purple 
coat. He took out of its pockets his pocket-book, his eye- 
glasses, his snuff-box, and several other little objects, which, 
together with his purse, he laid upon the mantel-piece. 

When he was dressed, the Abbe Edgeworth, who had lain 
sleepless and undressed on Clery's bed, came to him. The 
abbe' wore a plain black coat. Clery pushed the bureau 
into the middle of the chamber, and arranged it as an altar. 
The necessary things had been brought from the Church of 
the Capuchins in the Marais the night before. 

The mass began at six. Cl^ry assisted the priest in the 
service, reading from a prayer-book handed to him by his 
master. 

Kneeling on a little horsehair-covered cushion, Louis fol- 
lowed the service with great earnestness, and received the 
bread of the communion ; then, when the mass was over, he 
went back alone into his oratory. 

At seven o'clock he came out and gave Clery his seal, his 
wedding-ring, and a little package of hair. He charged Cle'ry 
to give these things to the queen, and to make her his last 
farewell. 

A few minutes after this he asked for a pair of scissors. 
The municipal ofificers hesitated. " We must know what you 
want them for," they said. 

" That Clery may cut my hair," replied Louis. 

The municipals deliberated half an hour, and then de- 
cided that he could not have the scissors. The king ap- 
peared annoyed, and insisted. He turned to one of them, 
saying, — 

" I would not have touched the scissors. I would have let 
Clery cut my hair in your presence. Try again, monsieur ; 
see if you cannot have this granted to me." 

The municipals, however, persisted in refusing. 



206 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

It was growing light. The sound of the drums beating the 
generale could be distinctly heard in the Tower. 

'' I suppose they are calling out the National Guard," 
said the king to his confessor. And as the noise increased, 
and the sound of the tramp of horses and of men was heard 
in the courtyard, together with orders shouted by the officers, 
he added, " I think that they have come." 

The evening before, when he quitted his wife and family, 
he had promised to see them again ; but the abbe had assured 
him that such an interview would only make them endure a 
trial more terrible than their first parting, and that he had 
better, for their sakes, deprive himself of the sad consolation 
of bidding them a last farewell. The king agreed and 
submitted. 

From seven to eight o'clock there was constant coming 
and going in the Tower of the Temple. The king was dis- 
turbed several times on various pretexts. He was even 
treated very roughly by some of the municipals on duty. 
He did not seem much moved by it, and only said to his 
confessor, " You see how these people treat me ; but we must 
learn to bear everything." 

About eight o'clock the door of his room was flung open. 
Santerre, the commandant of the National Guard, entered 
with his staff and ten generals. These were accompanied 
by two Commissioners of the Commune of Paris, men who 
were ex-priests. Their names were Bernard and Jacques 
Roux. 

Louis came out of his little turret chamber. 

" You have come for me ? " he said to Santerre. 

« Yes." 

" Give me one moment." 

He went back into the turret, and came out again almost 
immediately, followed by his confessor. He held a paper in 
his hand. It was his will, which he had made shortly before, 
on Christmas Day. 

He spoke to Jacques Roux, and said to him, — 

" Monsieur, I beg you to give this to the President of the 
Conseil General of the Commune." 



THE KING. 207 

Jacques Roux answered brutally, — 

" We did not come here to do your errands, but to escort 
you to the scaffold." 

"Very true," said Louis, gently. 

He then turned to Citizen Baudrais, a commissioner set 
over the guard at the Temple, and asked him to take charge 
of the will. Baudrais accepted the trust, and received the 
paper. 

At this moment, perceiving that all present wore their hats, 
the king asked for his, which Clery brought him. It was a 
three-cornered hat, the only serviceable one he had. He 
put it on, and then, speaking to the persons present, he 
begged them to show kindness to his family, and added : 

" I also commend to the care of the Commune Clery, my 
valet de chambre, who has always faithfully served me. My 
wish is that he should pass into the service of the queen — 
of my wife," he said, correcting himself. 

Nobody answered. 

Santerre then said, " Monsieur, it is almost time we should 
be going." Louis withdrew for the last time into his oratory, 
to collect himself. In a few minutes he came out again. 
Again pressed by Santerre to set out, he stamped with his 
right foot on the floor, and said, " Marchons ! " 

The procession then moved. At the top of the staircase 
Louis perceived Mathey, the concierge of the Tower, and 
said to him, — 

" I was a little too sharp with you the day before yesterday. 
Forgive me, Mathey." 

The man turned his head aside without an answer and 
slipped away. 

Louis walked across the first courtyard, then he turned 
round, and gave a farewell glance at the Tower of the 
Temple. 

In the outer court a carriage was waiting, — a green car- 
riage, — and two gendarmes held the door open. The 
carriage belonged to Claviere, the minister of public contri- 
butions. It was provided at the last moment, because the 
Commune was averse to Louis's being taken to the Place de 



208 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

la Revolution in the carriage of the mayor, which had been 
the order of the Executive Council. 

As the king approached, one of the gendarmes jumped 
into the carriage and seated himself on the front seat. 
Louis got in next, then the Abbe Edgeworth. Both took 
the back seats. The other gendarme then took the fourth 
place. He was Lieutenant Labrasse. 

More than ten thousand men under arms were massed 
around the Temple, forming a double line. The procession, 
preceded by drums beating, and trumpets sounding, moved 
on. It was a little past eight. 

As the carriage turned out of the Temple gate, a few 
women's voices cried, "Pardon! Grace!'''' 

The rain had ceased, but a dense, chill fog hung over the 
city. The procession gained the line of the Boulevards by 
the Rue du Temple. Cannon, rolling heavily over the 
sUppery streets, went before and behind, escorted by ten 
thousand men. 

It was a melancholy spectacle. Everywhere on the cross 
streets, and on any open space, were National Guards under 
arms. The crowd was silent. 

Every precaution had been taken. 

Nothing positive was known by the authorities, but it was 
rumored that the royalists would attempt to save the king. 
The Abbe Edgeworth had been informed of such a project. 
Possibly Louis still hoped that the devotion of some few of 
those once faithful to him would save him from impending 
death upon the scaffold. 

And indeed these expectations seemed likely to be 
realized. The procession had just reached the Boulevard 
Bonne Nouvelle, when, near the Porte St. Denis, a man 
forced his way through the crowd, followed by three others, 
younger than himself. All four brandished their swords, 
and cried : "A nous, frangais ! A nous ! All those who wish 
to save their king! " 

There was no echo to this cry. No one in the crowd 
responded. The friends on whom the rescuers had counted 
had not reached the rendezvous. The Httle party, seeing 



THE KING. 209 

itself deserted, tried to profit by the confusion caused by its 
rush to escape, but one of the corps de reserve, apprised by 
a vidette, fell upon them. They separated. Two managed 
to escape. These were the Baron de Batz and his secretary 
Devaux. The two others, closely pursued, rushed up the 
Rue de Cle'ry. They were followed, captured in a house, 
and cut to pieces. 

The drums and trumpets concealed the noise made by 
this attempt. Those in the carriage with Louis knew nothing 
of it, and drove on along the Boulevard du Temple, the 
Boulevard St. Martin, and the Boulevard St. Honore. 

Louis at first tried to talk to the Abbe Edgeworth, but the 
noise was so great that he could neither hear nor be heard. 
Then the abbe offered him his breviary, in which he read 
such psalms as the priest pointed out to him. 

The horses went at a walk, and their progress was so slov/ 
that it took nearly two hours to traverse the two miles which 
separated the Temple from the place of execution. It was 
past ten when the carriage stopped on the Place de la 
Revolution. 

" We have arrived, if I am not mistaken," whispered Louis 
in his confessor's ear. 

The executioners approached the carriage. There were 
five of them, — Charles Henri Sanson, their chief, his two 
brothers, Charlemagne and Louis Martin, and their two 
assistants, Gros and Barre. 

Sanson stood ready for his dreadful task. It was his duty, 
but in his heart he grieved for it.-^ He even hoped that 
something might occur which would prevent the procession 
from arriving at the scaffold, or that the victim might be torn 
from him by a popular rising. He did not know what might 
happen, and he, his brothers, and the assistants carried 
concealed weapons. Under their loose jackets they all had 
daggers and pistols, and their pockets were filled with 
cartridges. 

As time passed and no procession appeared, Sanson 

1 See Balzac's short story founded on fact, " Una Episode sous la 
Terreur." 

14 



210 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

began to hope that he would be spared this execution ; but 
soon a hoarse murmur rose from the Rue de la Revolution 
(now, as formerly, the Rue Roy ale), and the carriage contain- 
ing the victim appeared. There was nothing left for Sanson 
but to do his terrible duty. 

One of his assistants opened the carriage-door. Louis, 
before he got out, laid his hand on the knee of the Abbe 
Edgeworth, saying in a firm voice to the two gendarmes 
who were in the carriage, — 

" Gentlemen, I commend this gentleman to your care. 
See that after my death no insult is offered to hun. I 
charge you to look after him." 

Tliey were silent. Louis repeated his words. 

" Yes, yes. We will take care of him. Let us manage 
it," said one of them. Louis then got out of the carriage. 
It was at that moment exactly twenty minutes past ten. 

The scaffold was on a platform which had been erected 
upon the pedestal of the former statue of Louis XV., and 
faced the chateau of the Tuileries. It was surrounded by 
a railing, and mounted by six very steep steps. A wide 
space around it had been kept clear, and this space was 
bordered by cannon. 

Inside of the space there were from sixty to one hun- 
dred drummers ; dragoons on horseback, with close-clipped 
horse-tails on their helmets, formed a half-circle. On the 
Place were massed battalions from the Sections of Gravilliers, 
Arcis, and the Lombards. The Federes of Aix and Mar- 
seilles were at the entrance of the Champs Elysees. Du- 
gazon, the actor, on horseback like Santerre, whose aide-de- 
camp he was, was near them. He acted in so pretentious a 
manner that the crowd fancied he was playing an important 
part in the king's execution. 

Louis, meantime, was standing at the foot of the scaffold. 
Without speaking he took off his coat, untied the queue 
that confined his hair, took off his cravat, and opened 
his shirt, so as to uncover his neck and shoulders. Then 
he knelt down to receive the final benediction of his 
confessor. 



THE KING. 211 

As he rose the executioners approached him with ropes in 
their hands. 

" What are you going to do ? " he said. 

"We must bind you," replied one of tliem, — Martin 
Sanson. 

'•' Bind me ! No ! I will never consent to that. Do 
what is ordered you, but you shall not bind me. You must 
give that up." 

Martin, however, tried to bind him. Charlemagne came 
to his assistance. It was clear that if opposed they would 
use force. 

A struggle was on the point of taking place, when Sanson 
gave the Abb6 Edgeworth a look. The abbe, greatly moved, 
then said, — 

" Sire, in this new outrage see a last resemblance between 
your Majesty and that Son of God who Himself will be 
your reward." 

This intervention ended the painful scene. Louis sub- 
mitted. 

" But, indeed," he said to the abb^, " nothing but our 
Lord's example could have induced me to submit to such 
an insult." Then he turned to the executioners, saying : 
" Do what you will. I will drink the cup to the very dregs." 

The two assistants tied his hands behind his back and 
cut his hair. 

The steps of the scaffold were hard to mount. The fog 
and the sleet had made them slippery, and Louis had not 
the support of his hands, but he leaned on the Abbe Edge- 
worth as he mounted. It was twenty-two minutes past ten. 

As soon as he reached the platform, Louis, whose face 
was flushed, stepped quickly round the scaffold, and, leaning 
on the railing on the left side, which faced the Garde Meuble, 
he cried : "Be silent, drummers ! I wish to speak." 

The drummers obeyed. The noise ceased. Then, in 
a voice so strong that it was heard all round the scaffold and 
even as far as the garden of the Tuileries, Louis cried, — 

" I die perfectly innocent of all the imaginary crimes that 
have been laid to my charge. I forgive all those who are 



212 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

the cause of my misfortunes. I trust that my blood may 
assure the happiness of France. . . ." 

While he was speaking there was perceptible agitation 
among the National Guards placed near the scaffold ; some 
of them, thinking that the preliminaries of the execution had 
already lasted too long, were anxious to stop his speech ; 
others insisted that he should be allowed to go on. Even 
the opinion of the executioners was divided. The moment 
was critical. 

Santerre promptly put an end to it. At the first words 
spoken by Louis he rode up to the scaffold, and, lifting his 
sword, cried out, "I brought you here to die, not to 
harangue ! " Then to the executioners, " Do your duty." 
At the same moment he signed with his sword to the 
drummers to go on. They obeyed him. Their drumming 
drowned the words of Louis. No doubt he may have 
cherished a secret hope that he might move the spectators, 
for his face expressed great disappointment. A man named 
Bonvard, an actor in the The'atre de la R^publique, who 
was placed near the scaffold with his battahon, said after- 
wards that when the drums began to beat, the king grew 
"as yellow as a quince." He said also that Louis, still 
standing by the railing of the scaffold, seemed for a moment 
to be waiting till the drums should cease, and that he made 
some slight resistance when the executioners came up 
behind to seize him. 

Be that as it may, the scene lasted only a few moments. 
Louis, hopeless of being heard, yielded, and let the execu- 
tioners do what they would with him. They bound him 
and placed him on the plank. A loud cry was heard. The 
knife fell, and the head rolled into the basket. 

One of the assistants, — the youngest one, — a man 
named Gros, seized it by the hair, and, walking twice round 
the scaffold, showed it to the people. It was twenty-four 
minutes past ten o'clock. 

The crowd responded with cries of "Vive la Nation!" 
" Vive la R^publique ! " 

The Abb6 Edgeworth de Firmont, who during the king's 



THE KING. 213 

last moments had remained upon his knees repeating the 
prayers for the dying, then rose, descended from the plat- 
form, passed through the ranks of the dragoons, which 
opened to let him through, and as rapidly as possible 
sought refuge in the house of M. de Malesherbes. 

There had been some talk of firing cannon on the Pont 
Neuf as soon as the head of "Louis le Dernier" should 
have been severed ; but the plan was given up on pretense 
that the head of a king when it fell ought not to be of more 
consequence than the head of any other malefactor. Shouts, 
repeated from one crowd to another, spread the news. 

The great mass of the spectators in the Place de la Revo- 
lution and its neighborhood showed signs of joy. Men 
cried : " Vive la Liberte ! Vive la R^publique ! Vive 
I'Egalite ! Perish all tyrants ! " They sang hymns to 
Liberty ; they embraced one another ; they shook hands ; 
they danced round the guillotine, and on the square, and 
on the bridge, once called the Pont Louis Seize (now the 
Pont de la Concorde). Those nearest to the scaffold 
pressed under it, or climbed the steps. They dipped their 
pikes, their bayonets, and sabres in the blood. Others 
tried to soak it up on their handkerchiefs. 

A man got upon the guillotine, pulled up his sleeve, 
filled his hand with clots of blood, and three times sprinkled 
the spectators, crying out as he did so : " My brothers, we 
have been threatened that the blood of Louis Capet would 
fall upon our own heads. Thus let it fall ! Louis Capet 
has often dipped his hands in our blood. Republicans ! 
the blood of a king brings you good fortune ! " 

In vain a more sober citizen remonstrated : " My friends, 
what are we doing ? All that is passing here will be reported. 
Men will depict us in foreign countries as a savage people 
thirsting for blood." 

They answered him : " Yes ! thirsting for the blood of 
despots ! Tell it, if you will, to all the world ! . . . We 
should have been far better off this day, if on this spot 
where a statue was erected to Louis XV. our fathers had 
erected his scaffold ! " 



214 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Around the guillotine there was still commotion. The 
hat and coat of the king were torn in shreds, and men 
quarrelled over the fragments. One of the executioner's 
assistants was selling the hair of the victim. A young man 
who wanted, not a few hairs only, but the ribbon that had 
tied the king's queue, paid him a louis. Another who 
looked like a foreigner — an Englishman — gave fifteen 
francs to a boy, and begged liim to dip a very handsome 
white handkerchief in such blood as remained on the scaffold. 

A sans-culotte took some on his finger and put it to his 
lips. " It tastes devihshly salt ! " he cried. The Fed^res 
dipped bits of paper in it, stuck them on their pikes, and 
went off shouting, " See the blood of a tyrant ! " 

The dead body of the king was quickly taken away. A 
long wicker basket had been prepared, and the moment the 
execution was over the body was flung into it, and a cart 
carried it to the graveyard of La Madeleine (where the 
Chapelle Expiatoire was afterwards erected). This grave- 
yard had been given up in 1720, but it was reopened in 
1770 for the interment of the poor creatures who had been 
crushed to death at the fete given on that very spot at the 
marriage of Louis (then dauphin) with Marie Antoinette. A 
hundred dragoons on horseback escorted the body. 

A grave had been dug, twelve feet deep and six feet wide. 
Two priests were standing by it without surplices and with- 
out tapers. They put the body in the grave uncofifined, . 
with two full baskets of quicklime, and filled it up without 
any further ceremonies. 

The cart, as it drove back, let the wicker basket fall. The 
crowd rushed at it and renewed the scenes around the 
scaffold. Some rubbed the bottom with rags, others with 
handkerchiefs, and some with bits of paper. One man 
dipped two dice in the blood. 

Whilst all this was going on, the Conseil Gene'ral of the 
Commune was in permanent session. From the moment 
that the procession left the Temple, messengers, about every 
six minutes, arrived to report what was going on and at 
what place they had left Louis. A few of the members 



THE KING. 



215 



of the Council were much moved. It is said that the savage 
Hebert shed tears. One of his neighbors was surprised 
at this. "' The tyrant," he said, "was very fond of my dog, 
and often patted him.^ I was thinking of that." 

The Council was presided over by the ci-devant marquis, 
Duroure. When it received notice that the execution had 
taken place, Duroure burst out laughing, and flinging up his 
arms shouted, — 

" My friends, the affair is over ! the affair is over ! Every- 
thing went off admirably ! " 

A few moments afterwards Santerre came in, accompanied 
by the Commissioners of the Commune ; and Jacques Roux 
gave a viva voce account of the events in which he had 
participated. 

The sitting of the Convention took place as usual. It 
began at eight in the morning, and ended at half-past four. 
Vergniaud, the Girondist leader, that day presided. 

Whether it was that the members of the Assembly felt 
repugnance to speak of the execution then going on as 
the result of their own votes, or whether they were under the 
influence of apprehension as to its personal consequences 
on themselves, they spoke of nothing but the murder of 
one of their own number, Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, which 
had taken place the day before. He had voted for the 
king's death, and had been stabbed by a royalist in a cafe. 
A deputy related the particulars of his death, divelling 
emphatically on what he considered a significant mean- 
ing in his last words : fai froid. 

Other deputies mounted the tribune and declared that 
their lives had also been threatened by assassins. They 
did not say who had threatened them, but they were 
evidently impressed with the necessity of taking exceptional 
precautions. Barrere proposed that domiciliary visits should 
be made, to seek out and arrest any royalists who might 
be hiding themselves in Paris. The Assembly contented 

^ If this was so, it was probably during the long hours of the 
king's trial ; or Hebert and his dog may have visited the Temple. — 
E. W. L. 



2l6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

itself, however, with decreeing six years' imprisonment in 
chains for any one who did not denounce an anigre living 
under his roof. 

The Assembly then received a touching request from an 
old servant of Louis XVI.'s father. The Abbe Leduc asked 
permission to carry to Sens and there lay in the tomb of 
his own family the mortal remains of his old master's 
son. The Convention refused to accede to his request. 

As for Robespierre, he remained at home all day. The 
evening before he had requested Duplay, the cabinet-maker, 
in whose house he occupied a little room, to close carefully 
the door that opened on the Rue St. Honore'. This was 
done accordingly on the morning of January 21. Ele'onore, 
Duplay's daughter, supposed to be engaged to Robespierre, 
was surprised at this and asked the reason. 

" Your father is right," replied the deputy ; " something 
will pass which you ought not to see." 

On Sunday, the night before the king's death, Marie 
Antoinette, in deep grief after her last interview with her 
husband, went up to her chamber, on the highest story 
of the Tower of the Temple. She flung herself, dressed, 
upon her bed. She passed all night shivering with cold and 
trembling with apprehension. Madame Elisabeth and Marie 
Therese occasionally dozed. The little dauphin slept. 

At- six o'clock the next morning, the three women rose. 
The king had promised to see them again before he left the 
Temple, and they were expecting the summons. 

At a quarter past six their door opened. They thought 
the summons had' come. But, no, — it was a prayer-book 
that was wanted for the mass about to be said in the king's 
chamber. They gave the book, and waited. The book 
belonged to the wife of Tison. i 

The windows of the Tower had been boarded up, so that 
they could see only the sky. They could perceive nothing 
of what passed outside. 

At seven o'clock Marie Antoinette asked leave to go down 
into her husband's chamber. The municipals, much em- 
barrassed, eluded her request, saying that the king was 



THE KING. 217 

much occupied. She insisted again. Then one of them 
went to inquire if Louis XVI. would see his wife j but he 
did not come back with any answer. 

About this time the daupliin, who was now up and 
dressed, understood the terrible situation. He sprang from 
his mother's arms and rushed to the guards, clasping their 
knees and crying, — 

" Let me go, messieurs ! Let me go ! " 

" Where do you want to go ? " 

" To speak to the people, — to beg them not to kill 
my papa — the king. ... In the name of God, messieurs, 
let me go ! " 

The guards pushed the boy aside. He went slowly away, 
but kept on crying, " Oh, papa ! papa ! " Marie Antoi- 
nette pressed him in her arms, — him and his sister. She 
begged them to imitate their father's courage and never 
to think of avenging his death. She wanted them to eat 
some breakfast, but they refused. 

Then they heard the noise of drums and horses in the 
courtyard, but did not know what it might mean. Marie 
Antoinette, however, seemed to guess. 

" It is all over," she said, weeping. " We shall never see 
him again." 

The morning was passed by all in the greatest anxiety. 
Suddenly they heard cries and yells, mingled with the noise 
of fire-arms. 

'' Oh, the monsters ! they are glad ! " whispered Madame 
Elisabeth, hfting her eyes to heaven. 

The Httle prince burst into tears. Marie Therese screamed 
aloud ; Marie Antoinette was choked with sorrow. 

About one o'clock dinner was brought in. Marie Antoi- 
nette could* not touch food. A terrible anxiety oppressed 
her. She wanted to know how her husband in the death- 
hour had borne himself, — how he had died. She begged 
for the details. She asked leave for Cl^ry to come to her. 
This favor was refused. And the day ended for her and hers, 
as it had begun, in uncertainty and sorrow. 

All that morning Paris had worn an air of mourning. The 



2 1 8 THE FRENCH RE VOL UTION: 

murder of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau two days before had 
made the Revolutionists apprehend a royalist rising. Rumors 
of the domiciliary visits which had been projected called to 
mind those which had preceded the massacres of Sep- 
tember, and made others dread new dangers. 

But about midday, when it was found that the execution 
had taken place without hindrance, and that the measures 
taken by the authorities were limited to strengthening the 
armed posts and patrolhng the streets, the city resumed by 
degrees its usual aspect. 

The rich shops, the booths on the Boulevards, and work- 
men's places of work were, however, only half open, as on 
days of half-hohday (^petite fete). The population seemed to 
be divided into two very distinct parties. All who grieved 
over the tragical event and who dreaded its consequences 
stayed in their houses. The women in general were very sad. 
Those on the contrary who were under the influence of 
political passion applauded the execution and gave way to 
demonstrations of joy. The cafes were crowded with sans- 
culottes, who drank, harangued, and danced and sang. 

Men were crying pies and cakes on the very Spot where 
the tragedy had taken place. Citizens conversed together 
about the events of the day. Some regretted Santerre had 
caused the drums to stifle Louis's last words. Others approved 
what he had done — and then they fell to arguing. 

Before nightfall rumors began to circulate. It was said 
that Philippe Egalite had witnessed the execution of his 
cousin ; that he had been seen at the moment when the 
executioner held up the bloody head, but then had ridden off 
in haste on a horse that was held for him. 

A soldier who had been decorated with the cross of St. 
Louis died of grief on hearing of the execution of his king ; 
a bookseller named Vente, a man formerly attached to the 
King's Menus Plaisirs, became crazy ; a wig-maker in the Rue 
Culture Ste. Catherine, a known royalist, was seized with 
such despair that he cut his throat with a razor. 

Some people remarked that the number 2 1 had played a 
great part in the life of Louis. It was on the 21st day of 



THE KING. 219 

one month that he was married by proxy; on the 21st day 
of another that the crowd, at an exhibition of fireworks to 
celebrate his nuptials, trampled each other to death on the 
Place where he was executed. The dauphin was born on 
January 21 ; the flight to Varennes was on June 21 ; Sep- 
tember 21, the Assembly abolished royalty; and several 
other times the number 21 had been connected with his 
misfortunes. 

False rumors of course soon began to spread. It was as- 
serted that the young princess, Marie Therese, on hearing of 
her father's death, had died of grief, and that Marie Antoinette 
had been taken from the Temple and carried to another 
prison. 

On the evening of January 2 1 hardly any one but sans- 
culottes were to be seen in the streets of Paris, and these, 
excited by a day of drinking and shouting, fraternized more 
demonstratively than ever with each other. 

" Other kings of Europe would," they said, " have made 
war upon us, at any rate ; now we shall all be more eager to 
beat them. The same impure blood flows in the veins of 
all kings ; we must purge the earth of it and them." 

The clubs were all open that night, but the most interesting 
sitting was in that of the Jacobins. After the example of 
the deputies in the Assembly they seemed only anxious to 
avoid mention of the king's death, and to discuss the murder 
of Lepelletier de Saint- Fargeau. Citizen Saint-Andre made 
an emphatic eulogium on the deceased. A brother of 
Lepelletier then rose, and, by degrees, they made out a sort 
of legend concerning him and his death. It was remembered 
that he had said four months before, " Happy are the 
founders of the Republic, even if they pay for it with their 
own blood." And an historic expression was substituted for 
his commonplace last words, " I am cold." Then the club 
voted that its members, in a body, should attend his funeral. 
Not one word was said about the execution of the king. 

The theatres that night were open as usual, but the 
attendance, except in the pit, was very small. 

The newspapers said little, and that little was much the 



220 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

same in all of them. One paragraph on the subject was, 
however, emphatic. It was in the " Journal de la Republique," 
edited by Marat. 

" The head of the tyrant has fallen beneath the sword of jus- 
tice. The same stroke has severed the very roots of monarchy 
amongst us. I now have hopes for the Republic ! How vain 
were the fears with which the supporters of the dethroned despot 
endeavored to inspire us as to the consequences of his death, in 
hopes of snatching him from the scaffold! . . . The remainder 
of the day has been perfectly quiet. For tlie first time since 
the Federation the people seemed animated by a serene joy. 
One might have thought our citizens had taken part in a religious 
festival. Delivered from the weight of an oppression which has 
so long crushed the nation, and penetrated by a feeling of frater- 
nity, all hearts have yielded to the prospect of a happier future." 

It has been frequently related that the last words of the 
Abbe Edgeworth to the king were, " Son of Saint Louis, 
ascend to heaven ! " But one who was near the scaffold 
has said, " These words were circulated from mouth to 
mouth, but I did not hear them." And the Abbe Edgeworth 
himself declared that he had no recollection of having 
uttered them. 

All members of the diplomatic corps quitted Paris after 
the king's death, except the minister of the United States, 
Mr. Gouverneur Morris. He had not given up his post, but 
retired to his country house about thirty miles from Paris. 

The day when the news reached London consternation 
was great. The Theatre Royal, in which two pieces were to 
have been played that night, commanded by George III. 
and Queen Charlotte, was closed ; and the Marquis de 
Chauvelin, ambassador of France (now become Citizen 
Chauvelin), was ordered to quit England immediately. He 
left London the next morning for Paris. 

The reigning King of Sardinia, Victor Amadeus III., had 
married the Princess Marie Adelaide Clotilde, sister of Louis 
XVI. (she was called Gros Madame) ; while his two sisters, 
Maria Josefa and Maria Theresa, were the wives of the 
Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois. As soon as 



THE KING. 221 

he heard of the death of Louis, he showed marks of the 
greatest sorrow. Then he raised his hands to heaven and 
exclaimed that if his people wished to adopt French fashions 
he was ready to step down from his throne. Indeed, in his 
first moments of despondency he abdicated. His people 
were touched by his grief, and refused to part with him. 
They begged him to let them take a new oath of fidelity. 
He consented, and was carried back to his palace in triumph. 

The Emperor of Germany was visiting the Prince de 
Coloredo when the Due de Richelieu informed him of the 
death of his brother-in-law. " Sire," he said, pointing to the 
crape upon his arm, " the cup of crime is full, and I have 
received the sad commission of informing you.'' 

" Monsters ! " cried the emperor. " Has everything 
ceased to be sacred in their eyes? " And he burst into 
tears. 

At the courts of Madrid, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, sorrow 
and indignation were intense. Again the Due de Richelieu 
was the messenger who carried the sad tidings to the 
Empress Catherine. 

At Rome the news increased public indignation, though it 
could not increase the hostility of the government, which a 
few days before (January 13) had allowed the populace to 
murder, in open day, Citizen Bassville, secretary of the 
French legation, because he had displayed the tricolor of 
the French Republic. 

The Comte de Provence, the king's brother (subsequently 
Louis XVIIL), was at Hamm in Westphalia. The news 
reached him on the 2 8tli of January. He at once assumed 
the title of Regent of the Kingdom, and addressed a procla- 
mation to Frenchmen who were exiles in foreign lands. 

The Prince de Conde on January 30 had a funeral ser- 
vice in the Black Forest for Louis XVI. An anonymous 
author composed this epitaph. 

" Here lies King Louis. His own subjects slew him, 
In spite of all the good he tried to do them, 
Who by a courage never told in story 
Changed his dread scaffold to a Throne of Glory. " 



222 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Thus perished Louis XVI., King of France and of Navarre, 
aged thirty-eight years and five months lacking two days, 
after having reigned eighteen years and been in prison five 
months and eiglit days. 

When the king was dead, his ring and other remem- 
brances, which he had wished his family to keep for his 
sake, were withheld from them ; and the only personal 
remembrance which his sister, who was tenderly attached to 
him, was able to secure, was a battered old hat, which by 
some accident had been left in the Tower. This hat she 
treasured as a most valuable relic. It did not, however, long 
escape the prying eyes of the municipal officers, who took 
it away, saying that its preservation was a suspicious 
circumstance ! 



CHAPTER VI. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE AND ROBESPIERRE,^ 

A BOOK appeared in France in 1880, called the 
" Memoirs of Klindworth." Klindvvorth was a 
diplomatist who took an active part in public life during the 
early half of the present century. He was on terms of per- 
sonal intimacy (at least he says he was) with Talleyrand, 
Metternich, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Palmerston, and 
M. Guizot ; his book consequently abounds in new facts, 
such as underlie the graver pages of pure history. One of 
these is a detailed narrative, given to him by a certain M. 
Grandidier, charged by Robespierre with a secret mission to 
Vienna, in July, 1793. The object of this mission was to 
detach Austria from the coalition against France. In this 
extract from the pages of Klindworth, Grandidier speaks for 
himself. 

*' Baron Thugut, prime minister and minister for foreign 
affairs in Austria at that period, received me very amicably 
on my return to Vienna ; and when I informed him in a pre- 
liminary brief interview that I had brought with me fresh 
instructions to continue negotiations on the basis he himself 
had proposed, he testified his satisfaction, and invited me to 
dinner the next day. I went to his official residence, there- 
fore, at the time appointed. We dined tete a tete, and the 
dinner was a very good one. Our conversation turned on 
France, and on the general situation of affairs. After din- 
ner the minister, having left me for a moment, returned with 
a lady who was at that time known as Madame Charles de 

1 From the " Supplement Litteraire du Figaro." Translated by me 
and published in "Littell's Living Age," Dec. 18, 1880. — E. W. L. 



224 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Poutet. but subsequently she got leave to emblazon on her 
carriage and her scutcheon a countess's coronet. She was an 
exquisitely beautiful woman; her limbs were as finely formed 
as those of a model, and she had the most perfect carriage 
of the head I ever saw. I was dazzled by the vision. The 
minister introduced us. She spoke French fluently with no 
German accent, and had, in a remarkable degree, that gift 
of conversation which is so rarely met with, out of France. 

" As she took leave she said, ' Come and see me to-mor- 
row at one o'clock. I want to talk to you.' Punctual to 
the appointment, I was shown next day into a spacious 
apartment in the Imperial Palace. The lady did not keep 
me waiting, but received me cordially, and invited me to 
take a seat beside her. 

" ' Before I begin to speak of other things,' she said, ' I 
had better tell you that presently a lady will appear and pass 
through this room. I beg you do not rise or take any 
notice of her.' 

" This happened very shortly. ' It is the empress/ said 
Madame de Poutet. ' Her curiosity to see you has brought 
her here. Ah ! you have no idea,' she added in a tone of 
irony, ' how very narrow-minded you will find us in this 
place. We cross ourselves when any mention is made of 
France, and really and truly most people imagine that each 
French republican carries a private guillotine in his pocket. 
But a truce to this nonsense : let us talk of your affairs. I 
know your mission, but you will never succeed so long as 
Queen Marie Antoinette and her daughter are not set at 
liberty and sent back to their family. Blood relationship, 
public decency, and family honor absolutely require this 
condition before there can be any question of understanding 
between Austria and France. Let me ask you a few 
questions. I quite understand how Monsieur de Robes- 
pierre T-nay not have thought of this in the busy situation in 
which he finds himself, but how does it happen that this 
obvious view of the matter has not presented itself to you ? 
The situation of the queen cannot but be a barrier to all 
entente between us, till it is changed.' 



MARIE ANTOINETTE AND ROBESPIERRE. 22$ 

" I tried to speak, but she begged me to let her finish on 
this subject all she wished to say. 

" * You must not imagine,' she continued, ' that any per- 
sonal feeling of sympathy makes me speak as I am doing. 
I have very little sympathy either for the queen or for her 
late husband. One who has been born a king should know 
how to mount his horse and to defend his royalty ; and the 
queen of a great country, especially in a time of trial and 
misfortune, should not lead a life of pleasant dissipation. 
Les peuples resemble monkeys ; they like to imitate one 
another. If Charles I. of England had never been beheaded, 
you would not have put to death Louis XVI. But the queen 
is alone now, without her husband ; what harm can she 
do you ? To put women to death is as atrocious as it is 
stupid ; and, indeed, have you any right to bring the queen 
to trial, since on the death of her husband she resumed her 
position as Archduchess of Austria? She belongs to us.' 

" Madame de Poutet here paused. She seemed waiting 
with impatience for my answer. 

"• ' After what you have done me the honor to say, ma- 
dame,' I replied, ' I regret exceedingly that our minister did 
not speak to me on this subject before I left France. When 
our interview closes there will be one of two things for 
me to do : either I must go back to Paris and ask for fresh 
instructions, or I must ask for them in writing and await 
them here.' 

" ' Very good,' she said in a decided tone, ' stay here and 
write^ 

"■ After a moment's pause she added, ' After all, it does 
but add one brief clause to our treaty. What are your own 
views upon the subject? ' 

" ' I have no opinions about it,' I replied. ' The libera- 
tion of the queen is no small matter, in the state of ferment 
existing in the minds of men in France. On the other hand, 
M. de Robespierre well understands the art of government, 
and I know him well enough to feel that he would not hesi- 
tate to brave public opinion, if firmly resolved, as I think he 
is, to make peace with Austria.' 

IS 



226 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

'■'■ ' Qui veut la fin veut les moyens ' (he who desires the 
end accepts the means), she said. ' Write. ^ 

*' My answer speedily arrived from Paris. It was short 
and precise : ' Granted. Come back to Paris as soon as 
possible, with the draft of the treaty finally drawn up, and 
accompanied by a commissioner with full powers, in writing, 
to carry out the extradition/ 

" I did not lose a moment in informing M. Thugut of this 
important news. He told me to communicate it at once to 
Madame de Poutet. She received me most cordially and 
graciously. 

"■ 'I see,' she said, 'that all will now go right between us. 
The queen will be restored to us with the young princess. 
Remember what I said to you from the beginning. That is 
the indispensable condition of our entente, and I will imme- 
diately set to work with Thugut to arrange everything. And 
now that we no longer need any concealments, I will tell you 
plainly that the cession of the Low Countries to France 
really costs us nothing. We are willing to get rid of that 
horrid nest of clericalism and rebellion. The Low Coun- 
tries have been for two centuries a millstone round the 
neck of Austria, without doing her any good in return.' 

"All being as I have told you," continued M. Grandidier, 
" the treaty was completed without difficulty. After I had 
had a second conversation with the minister, we both signed 
the draft of it July 12, 1793." 

"When the old man," continues Klindworth, " reached 
this portion of his narrative, he drew out of a bundle of 
papers one containing a rough copy of the proposed treaty 
between France and Austria, and allowed me to read it at- 
tentively. After I got home I tried to remember it exactly, 
and wrote it down. This is the substance of the paper : 

Article L 

From this day forward, and forever, there shall be firm peace, 
friendship, and an inviolable good understanding between the 
French Republic and the Emperor of Germany, King of Hun- 
gary and Bohemia. Both parties, henceforward, will carefully 



MARIE ANTOINETTE AND ROBESPIERRE. 22/ 

avoid anything calculated to disturb the reciprocal harmony of 
their relations. 

Article II. 

The former provinces of the Low Countries are ceded by 
his Majesty the Emperor, forever, to the French Republic ; and 
shall be possessed by that Republic in all sovereignty and pro- 
prietary, with all the territories that belong to them. 

Article III. 

The Emperor renounces, for himself and his successors, all 
rights and titles that he has or may yet have on the countries 
situated on the left bank of the Rhine, from the frontier of 
Switzerland below Basle, to the confluence with the Nethe 
above Andernach ; comprising the tete de pont at Manheim, 
and the town and citadel of Mayence. The Emperor also prom- 
ises to employ his good offices with the Empire, that it may 
consent to the cession of the said territories to the French 
Republic. 

Article IV. 

The French Republic consents that the Emperor shall annex 
to his dominions the countries situated between the Tyrol and 
the Danube, the Lech and the Salza ; and formally promises 
him all assistance he may need in arms, if any third power 
should dispute the aforesaid acquisition, or interfere with the 
tranquil possession thereof. 

Additional and Secret Clause. 

Marie Antoinette, ci-devant Queen of France, shall be, to- 
gether with her daughter, escorted to the French frontier, thence 
to be returned to Austria, her native country." 

" I was anxious," continued M. Grandidier, " to return to 
Paris with all speed, together with the commissioner fixed 
on by Baron Thugut to receive the queen's person in the 
name of the government of the emperor. He was a canon 
from the Cathedral Church of Waitsen ; a man of about 
forty, with a kind and engaging expression. His name was 
Soos, He knew German, spoke Latin after the fashion of 



228 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

his countrymen, and French indifferently. M. de Thugut 
treated me with the utmost cordiahty, and told me he hoped 
soon to see me return with the treaty ratified. I then went 
to take leave of Madame de Poutet. ' You are a dreadful 
republican, I know,' she said gayly ; ' but, alas ! I am greatly 
in your debt. Salute me farewell, and bon voyage' 

" The commissioner and I reached Paris about five o'clock 
in the morning. An hour later I went to see Robespierre. 
Mademoiselle Cornelia,^ always austere and always busy, was 
drying clothes, and received me in the courtyard. She con- 
gratulated me on my return, and told me that /<? patron was 
closeted with his brother about something very important, 
and that she had been told to let nobody go up to them. I 
waited half an hour. After that the door opened, and I 
went in. 

" I was received with civility, and made my report, which 
was very circumstantial. I then handed to Robespierre 
a copy of the treaty that had the signature of the 
prime minister of Austria, announced the arrival of the 
emperor's commissioner, and gave in an account of my 
expenses on the journey. Everything was well received. 
After having read the text of the treaty carefully, and ap- 
proved it formally, Robespierre expressed in a few words 
his satisfaction, and, while I was answering him, he wrote a 
few lines upon a piece of paper. 

" 'This is an order for you,' he said, ' to be admitted to 
the Temple to-morrow morning at seven o'clock, withThugut's 
envoy.' 

" * Must I present him to you first ? ' I said. 

" ' There is no need that I should see him,' he replied. 
' You can give me an account of the interview. This treaty,' 
he continued, ' gives me a new map of France, by which I 
will confound and subdue all traitors, without and within.' 

"Then he made me a sign with his hand, as his custom 
was, and so dismissed me. 

"The next morning, at the appointed hour, the canon 
and I presented ourselves at the Temple. He had put on 

^ The name given to Eleonore Duplay. 



MARIE ANTOINETTE AND ROBESPIERRE. 229 

a black coat and a white cravat for the occasion, and was 
furnished with two sealed autograph letters from the emperor 
and empress to the queen. Two municipal guards and a 
member of the Council of the Commune were waiting for 
us. By their orders the jailer opened the doors, and soon 
we stood in the presence of the queen. 

" She was seated on a low stool, busy mending a petticoat 
of coarse black serge. Her back was half turned towards 
us, and she paid at first no attention to our presence. Her 
clothes were in rags. Over her breast was pinned a coarse 
white kerchief, and her shoes were very much worn. She 
stooped, like an old woman. She was deathly pale, and 
we could see distinctly that under her little cap her hair 
was as white as snow. I made a few steps towards her, 
and bowing respectfully I presented the messenger of the 
emperor. 

" Then glancing at me for the first time, she cast upon me 
a look that all the days of my life I shall never cease to 
remember. Her face, once so gay and brilliant, wore an 
indescribable expression. It was one of almost stolid idiocy. 
The canon approached her in his turn, made a low bow and 
presented his letters. After having read them rapidly, and 
with apparent indifference, she gave them back to their 
bearer, and in a hoarse sepulchral voice said in French : 

" ' You will thank the emperor and empress for their 
thought of me. You will tell them from me that I desire to 
die in France, like my husband ; and that I am waiting 
impatiently for the moment that will reunite me to him 
forever.' '^ 

" I wanted to say more, but she made me a sign to be 
silent, and as she did so rose and went away. My travelling 
companion was deeply grieved. He wept bitterly. I left 
him at once to make my report to Robespierre. Robespierre 
heard me in silence, and I must say without any sign of sym- 

1 It would seem as if Marie Antoinette was prepared to expect some 
cruel stratagem — 2,giiet-apens. And indeed, for she was still stunned 
by her barbarous separation from her son, how could she liave turned 
her back on Paris, and left him behind ? — E. W. L. 



230 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

pathy or compassion. Then he said : ' It is annoying, but 
she is right in the main. What part has this woman now 
among the hving ? ' Then, after a Httle pause, he resumed, 
' You will go back to Vienna immediately with the commis- 
sioner, and you will come to me to-morrow morning at five 
o'clock, to get your orders.' 

" When I got back to Vienna, Baron Thugut received me 
as an old friend. I perceived at once by his manner that 
the affair of the Temple had not changed his views regarding 
the policy of the French aUiance. Besides which he knew 
the queen too well, having been on an embassy to Versailles 
in 1777, to feel great sympathy for her, and I could read 
plainly in his face that the resolution of the widow of Louis 
XVI. not to return to her friends in Austria was a matter of 
perfect indifference to him. 

"When I showed him the ratification of the treaty 
signed by Robespierre, he expressed his satisfaction ; but 
when I asked for that of the emperor in exchange, he said : 
'You must feel that that for the present is impossible. The 
queen must perish, since she wills it so. We must wait until 
after her execution. Then I will seize the right moment to 
complete our work, for which I am as anxious as M. de 
Robespierre.' 

'• I next called upon Madame de Poutet. Her reception 
was very different from that of the minister. I never visited 
her again. 

" When I got back to France it was under melancholy 
auspices. It was during the first two weeks of August, 1 793. 
The country was in a state of great excitement. The Con- 
vention had ordered a levee en masse, which gave a fresh 
impulse to the war, greatly to the annoyance of Robespierre, 
— though of course secretly. Then came the capture of 
Toulon by the English, surrendered to them with our fleet 
of seventeen sail of the line and five frigates, by the Legiti- 
mist traitor Imbert, who in a pamphlet published in 1814 
dared to boast of his infamy. 

"All this renewed the European crusade against France, 
and was the cause of fresh alliances against her. New 



MARIE ANTOINETTE AND ROBESPIERRE. 23 I 

treaties and new subsidies cemented the coalition between 
England, Prussia, Austria, and Spain. The secret treaty 
between Thugut and the French Republic, which Robes- 
pierre had thought would give his country a new map of 
France, was buried beneath English gold and European 
ruin. " 



CHAPTER VII. 

CLOSING SCENES IN THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

A BRIEF account of the life of the unhappy family in the 
■^^^ Temple must preface this account of the last days of 
Marie Antoinette.^ 

^ An admirable account of life in the Temple may be found in 
Lamartine's " Histoire des Girondins ; " I have not, however, drawn 
on it, but in this chapter, and a subsequent one upon the dauphin, I 
have taken my narrative from a much briefer account, founded on 
the memoirs of Clery the valet, and the Duchesse d'Angouleme. I 
have given the story, however, almost in the words of Mrs. Markham. 
I was brought up on Mrs. Markham's Histories of France and Eng- 
land. I vividly recall the delight with which, when a child of eight, 
I devoured surreptitiously (as I supposed) some of the conversations 
in the History of England. The account here given of the life of 
the royal family in the Temple seems burnt into my memory. I have 
read many since, but this one holds a place to which no other can 
attain in my mind. I have picked out the narrative from the " con- 
versation " that contains it, — each chapter of history being supple- 
mented by a conversation on points of interest. During a residence 
of fifty years in the United States I have seen only one copy of 
Mrs. Markham's Histories, and that, to my indignation and surprise, 
had the coqversations left out. I knew Mrs. Markham in my early 
life. She was wife to the Rev. Mr. Penrose, rector of a parish, I 
think, in Leicestershire; Markham was a nom de plume. I am sorry 
to think she had no children. She was a daughter of Major Cartwright, 
who in the first quarter of this century was considered a dangerous 
Radical ; his daughter's Histories are, however, strictly conserva- 
tive. I must allow myself a little anecdote in connection with Mrs. 
Markham. In 1846 my father was very active in Admiral Sir Charles 
Napier's canvass for the borough of Mary-le-bone, and the day the 
election was decided he asked me to lend Sir Charles Mrs. Mark- 
ham's History of England. " For," said he, " Sir Charles tells me 
that he never read a History of England in his life, and now that 
he is to legislate for his country he thinks he ought to look into 
one!" — E. W. L. 




MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
{Leaving' the Tribunal.) 



SCENES IN THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 233 

The Duchesse d'Angoulerae — Marie The'rese, daughter 
of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette — was about fourteen 
years of age when she entered the Temple. She had great 
difficulty in writing her journal ; for having been deprived 
of pens and ink, she had to write with a pencil on such 
scraps of paper as she could secrete from the municipal 
guards. These scraps were afterwards collected together 
and published. 

When the royal family was first placed in the Little Tower 
of the Temple, they had the comfort of being together. 
There was a good collection of old books there, to which 
the king was allowed access, and these books and the in- 
struction of the dauphin furnished him with occupation. 
The princess tells us : — 

" My father rose at seven, and was employed at his de- 
votions till eight ; afterwards he dressed himself and my 
brother, and at nine came to breakfast with my mother. 
After breakfast my father taught my brother his lessons till 
eleven. The child then played till twelve, at which hour 
the whole family was obliged to walk in the garden, what- 
ever the weather might be, because the guards who were 
relieved at that hour wished to see that all the prisoners 
were safe. The walk lasted till dinner, which was at two 
o'clock. After dinner my father and mother played at 
trictrac or piquet ; or, to speak more truly, they pretended 
to play, that they might have an opportunity of saying a few 
words to one another." 

They were, to be sure, allowed to speak, but only in a 
voice loud enough for those who were incessantly employed 
in keeping guard to hear what they said. They had observed 
that when they were playing cards they were not quite so 
closely watched, and made use of the opportunity of saying 
a few words to each other unheard. 

" At six," continues the princess, " my brother went again 
to my father to say his lessons, and to play till supper-time. 
After supper my mother undressed him quickly and put him 
to bed. My aunt and I then went up to our own apartment 
The king did not go to bed till eleven. My mother worked 



234 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

a great deal of tapestry; she directed my studies, and often 
made me read aloud. My aunt was frequently at prayer, 
and every morning read the appointed service for the day ; 
she read a good many religious books, and sometimes, at 
the queen's request, would read aloud." 

Marie Antoinette was deprived of all her women, but the 
king was permitted to retain M. Cle'ry, his valet. At first 
they were allowed to have a woman to clean out their rooms, 
light their fires, and do all the harder work ; but this woman, 
who was a low, vulgar creature and a furious Jacobin, proved 
a great torment to them. At last she lost her intellect, and 
for a time they had the great trouble and anxiety of attend- 
ing upon her in the unhappy state to which she was re- 
duced. When she was gone, the two princesses had to 
make the beds and clean the rooms. The young princess 
says that she and her aunt were very awkward at this work 
at first, and that it used to fatigue them exceedingly; but 
they preferred anything to being pestered with another 
female Jacobin. 

Everything seems to have been done that could have 
been thought of for the purpose of tormenting the unhappy 
family. There was scarcely a moment in which they were 
not exposed to some fresh insult or vexation. They were 
frequently searched to see that they had no treasonable 
papers ; that is, what the municipal officers chose to call 
such. They were deprived of almost all their personal com- 
forts. Their needlework was examined, and at last their 
tapestry was taken away, under pretence that it might afford 
them some secret method of writing, or of communicating 
intelligence to each other by hidden signs or devices. While 
the queen was giving her daughter lessons, a municipal officer 
was continually looking over their shoulders to see that they 
were not employed in plots or conspiracies. The wretches 
even carried their insults so far as to accuse Madame Elisabeth 
of stealing a china cup which by some accident was missing. 

The saddest part of this history of the captivity in the 
Temple is that which took place on July 3, 1793, only a 
few days before the queen in her despair was seen by 



SCENES IN THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 235 

M. Grandidier. The boy was taken from his mother and 
delivered over to Simon. 

"Then," says the princess, "my poor mother would sit 
whole hours in silent despair ; and her only consolation was 
to go to the leads of the Tower because my brother went 
often on the leads of the Tower on the other side. The only 
pleasure my mother enjoyed was seeing him through a chink 
as he passed at a distance. She would watch at this chink 
for hours together, to see the child as he passed ; it was her 
only hope, her only thought. But this mournful satisfaction 
she was soon deprived of About a month after the poor 
boy had been taken away, she was roused from her bed at 
two o'clock one morning by some Commissioners of the 
Commune, who ordered her to rise, telling her they were 
come to take her to the Conciergerie. She was forced to 
rise and dress herself before these men, who searched her 
pockets and took everything out of them. They, how- 
ever, allowed her, as a great favor, to retain her pocket- 
handkerchief and smelling-bottle, lest she should be faint 
on the way." 

She was scarcely suffered to take a hurried leave of 
Madame Elisabeth and her daughter. It was on passing 
through a low doorway that day that she struck her head, 
and on one of the men asking her if she was hurt she re- 
phed, " Nothing can hurt me now." 

When Marie Antoinette first reached the Conciergerie, 
General Custine, the soldier-martyr of the Revolution (who 
had begun his military career in the United States under 
Washington and Rochambeau), was turned out of his cell 
to make room for P Autrichiefine ; and the position of this 
cell near the wicket where the non-political prisoners saw 
their friends was peculiarly disagreeable, since it was mostly 
surrounded by a noisy crowd, whose filthy language offended 
the ear by day and night. It must be remembered that 
in the Conciergerie were confined the lowest class of crimi- 
nals, as well as political prisoners. 

1 The remainder of this chapter is an extract from an article in the 
" London Quarterly Review," published in April, 1895. 



236 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

It is now impossible to identify the exact position of this 
cell. We only know it was one of the worst in the Con- 
ciergerie and in the worst part of the prison. 

The removal of the poor queen to somewhat better quar- 
ters was probably due to the humanity of the concierge. 
After the affaire de I'ceillet (a plot to effect the escape of 
the queen, set on foot by the Chevalier de Rougeville, and 
which but for an accident might have succeeded), Richard 
the concierge was temporarily deposed, and Bault, a man 
more disposed to show kindness to the queen, was put in 
his place. 

Those now permitted to visit the cell to which Marie 
Antoinette was removed cannot fail to feel that it is yet 
haunted by the tall figure of the queen, wearing her mourn- 
ing dress of black caraco, and under her white cap bearing 
the proud suffering face that Delaroche has painted. Dumb, 
yet speaking, it bears witness to the unmanly indignities in- 
flicted on this solitary and most unhappy woman. At the 
end is a heavily barred window placed high in the wall, 
which would look out — if it were possible to look through 
it — upon the courtyard. Marie Antoinette was placed in 
solitary confinement, and did not mix with the other prison- 
ers, among whom she would have found many a friend, 
though some of the sans-culotte detenus addressed insults 
to her window. The wretched place — it is especially damp 
and cold — is full of memories of the discrowned yet most 
regal woman who had to bear her woes alone, without the 
solace of human companionship or sympathy. On the right 
of the dismal dungeon looking towards the window was an 
ordinary small prison bed of sangle (chaff). An attendant 
slept in the cell, and behind a paravent, or folding screen, 
were placed two gendarmes. There is now no furniture 
in the room, but there is the crucifix which she used before 
leaving for the scaffold ; and there is an altar which was 
erected by Louis XVIII. to the memory of the murdered 
queen. In entering the cell it is necessary to stoop, and 
tradition says that this door was made lower in order to 
compel her Majesty to bow her head before the power of 



SCENES IN THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 237 

the Revolution. The altar bears an inscription in Latin, 
which describes the words she wrote in the last hours of her 
life to Madame Elisabeth, as an " eternal monument of 
courage, piety, and every virtue." It adds, " All you who 
come within this place adore, admire, pray." 

Two large paintings have been also placed in the cell 
which have no particular merit, and give the spectator the 
feeling of their having intruded there. One represents the 
trial of the queen ; the other her removal from the Temple 
to the Conciergerie. 

What weary nights must Marie Antoinette have passed 
in this bare cell, with the prospect of a terrible death always 
before her imagination ! She suffered especially from two 
dreads : one that she would be murdered in her cell, the 
other that she would be torn to pieces by the mob on her 
way to execution. It needed almost superhuman courage 
to bear up against such ghastly apprehensions. Then, too, 
she was distracted by thoughts of her children, and she 
knew into what hands the dauphin had fallen. She spent 
seventy-five days in the Conciergerie, coming there on the 
night of the 2d of August, 1793, and leaving it for her 
execution on the morning of October 16 of the same 
year. 

She was in no way dangerous to the Revolution, and even 
the leaders of the Jacobins hesitated for some time to take 
her life. The king was dead. The dauphin was being de- 
based and slowly killed. They had nearly all they could 
want, and they had destroyed the direct line of their mon- 
archs. The king's brothers were out of reach, and the 
widowed Marie Antoinette might safely have been allowed 
to retreat to Austria,^ but Robespierre could refuse nothing 

1 We have seen in the preceding pages that this was contemplated 
by Robespierre; but when the war fever in August, 1793, broke 
forth afresh, when Toulon was surrendered, and a ^evee en masse was 
proclaimed, there was no longer any hope of calming the people of 
France or of propitiating Austria. Then Marie Antoinette's fate was 
sealed ; she could be no longer serviceable in furthering Robespierre's 
schemes, whether of patriotism or ambition. — E. W. L. 



238 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

that might please the Jacobins. The people of France did 
not desire her death, but as Riouffe said : " The real France 
was then dumb and deaf; dumb before the acts of a gov- 
ernment only known to her people by its dark deeds and 
its terrible power ; . . . human nature was more degraded in 
France in one year (the year II. of the Republic) than it 
had ever been in Turkey in one hundred years." 

The incarceration of the queen was attended with all the 
cruelty which belonged to that godless and inhuman time. 
She suffered severely from cold and had to use her meagre 
pillow to warm her feet. Madame Bault, touched by the 
courteous dignity and suffering of the captive, applied to 
Fouquier-Tinville for more coverings for the queen's bed, or 
rather for the bed of the Veuve Capet. But the heartless 
wretch replied : " How dare you ask for such a thing ? 
You yourself deserve to be sent to the guillotine for doing 
so." The clothes of the unfortunate lady, who in hfe had 
been accustomed to splendor, were miserable, worn, and 
insufficient. No looking-glass was allowed her, but in her 
pity a girl named Rosalie Lamoriliere — the hearts of all the 
women in attendance on the queen were more or less softened 
towards her — procured a little common mirror, bought on 
the Quai for twenty-five sols d^assignats, and gave it to 
the Queen of France, who used it up to and upon the day 
of her death. 

When Marie Antoinette reached her last prison she looked 
thin, weak, and worn ; her hair had grown gray at the 
temples, and her sight was impaired. One eye, indeed, was 
of little use to her. She suffered much from hemorrhoids, 
but there is no record of any attempt having been made to 
procure her medical assistance. Her jewels had been taken 
from her, and even the watch she had brought with her from 
Vienna. The loss of this watch, especially dear as it was 
through association with her youth, cost the poor queen 
many silent tears. But she suffered no word of complaint 
at this or any other insult to pass her lips. After she was 
dethroned, Marie Antoinette became most truly queenly. 
All the levities of her days of glory and temptation had been 



SCENES TN THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 239 

purged and burnt away, and sorrow and suffering rendered 
her in every respect more noble. She was thirty-eight when 
she was executed. It would seem that from her entry to 
her prison to the day of her death, she was never allowed 
to leave her cell. She was alone with sorrow. 

Her personal attendants were one Lariviere, a woman of 
eighty (" une esp'ece de poissarde, dont elle se plaignait fort,^'' 
says Gaulot), a young woman named Harel, and Rosahe 
Lamoriliere, who became profoundly attached to her. The 
Baults had, to please their employers, to hide any pity or 
sympathy beneath a show of external roughness. There was 
no chimney in the queen's cold cell, which had to contain 
herself, her female attendants, and two gendarmes. The 
Revolutionary soldiers never left the chamber. The screen 
was perforated with holes, to facilitate observation. The bed 
the queen had used was afterwards assigned to Egalite 
d'Orl^ans, who had voted the death of his cousin ; and 
when he had been guillotined, it was given to the Chevalier 
de Bastion. 

The queen appeared for the first time before the Rev- 
olutionary Tribunal on Oct. 12, 1793, at 6 p. m. The 
room in which the Tribunal sat in the Palais de Justice, 
which formed part of the Conciergerie, is now the premiere 
chambre civile, and she ascended to it by a staircase now 
called Fescalier de la reine. The place was lit by only two 
candles. The queen's chief care was to compromise no one 
by her answers. Her clear, calm replies wanted nothing in 
dignity, courage, or self-possession. 

The second examination, or trial, took place October 14. 
Hermann was the president of the court, Fouquier-Tinville 
the acciiseiir publique (or prosecuting attorney), Fabricius the 
greffier (or secretary). The jury (it is as well to hand their 
names down to infamy) was composed of Gannay, a wig- 
maker ; Martin Nicholas, a printer ; Chatelet, a painter ; 
Grenier Crey, a tailor ; Antonelle, an ex-deputy ; Souberbidle, 
a surgeon ; Trinchard, a cabinet-maker ; Jourdeuil, an ex- 
constable ; Gemon, Daver, and Suard. They were all paid 
hirelings, furious Jacobins, and mortally afraid of Fouquier- 



240 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Tinville. The accusation, or indictment, was merely a 
violent statement of loose, floating prejudices. But Her- 
mann called the queen " cette moderne Medicis.'^ She said 
with lofty eloquence : " I was a queen ; you have dethroned 
me. I was a wife ; you have slain my husband. I was a 
mother ; you have torn from me my children. Nothing is 
left me but my hfe's blood ; slake your thirst in it, but do 
not make me suffer longer." ^ In spite of the nervous strain 
of such a trial, the queen maintained her quiet, dignified 
attitude. She made no appeal to justice or to mercy ; she 
evinced no weakness ; she showed almost no visible emotion 
except when she repelled, with noble indignation, the foul 
aspersions thrown upon her as a mother. As a matter of 
course the jury found her guilty on all counts, and she re- 
ceived sentence of death. 

It is not hard to imagine that impressive trial scene. We 
know the room and can easily restore the fatal chamber to 
its state in October, 1793. Members of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal, five judges, officials in heavily plumed hats and 
tricolor sashes, Fouquier-Tinville, Herman, the squalid jury, 
the gendarmes, the prisoner, — we see them all by the dim 
candlelight, in that long night, sitting on benches, while, as 
a background, Jacobin spectators, men and women, crowd 
round, involuntarily half-awed by the courage of the woman 
who met her fate so calmly. 

Robespierre, until the last days of his tyranny, always af- 
fected an appearance of legality ; and this even when the 
only law was his own will. For form's sake the queen was 
allowed counsel. She had two lawyers assigned her, Chau- 
veau-Lagarde, and Trongon-Ducoudray. They, well know- 
ing that the case was decided in advance, put forward such 
pleas as they dared to urge. On leaving the Tribunal to 
return to her cell, Marie Antoinette was conducted by a 
lieutenant of gendarmes, De Busne by name. She said, " I 

^ Her exact words were : " J'etais reine, et vous m'avez detronee. 
J'etais epouse, et vous avez fait perir mon mari. J'etais mere, et vous 
m'avez arrache mes enfants. II ne me reste que mon sang ; abreu- 
vez-vous en ; mais ne me faites pas souffrir plus longtemps." 



SCENES IN THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 24 1 

can hardly see where I am going." In her cell she was 
allowed pen and paper, and wrote that long farewell letter to 
Madame Elisabeth which was given to Fouquier-Tinville, 
and by him to Couthon, among whose papers it was found. 

At five o'clock on the morning of Oct. 16, 1793, the 
rappel was beaten in all the Sections, and by seven o'clock 
the armed force designed to guard the streets between the 
prison and the scaffold was ready. 

At eight o'clock, Rosalie assisting, the queen changed her 
linen for the last time. A soldier approached and looked 
on. " In the name of decency let me change my under- 
clothes without witnesses," cried the outraged lady. ^' My 
orders are not to lose sight of you," replied the brutal Jaco- 
bin. And she had to manage as she could, crouching 
down upon her bed, and screened as far as possible by 
Rosahe. The honest girl tells us that the Committee had 
ordered that she should have no kind of food on the morn- 
ing of the execution, but it is pleasant to know that a cup of 
chocolate et un petit pain mignonette (a little tiny roll) 
were supplied by the charity of Rosahe and Madame Bault. 
The Jacobins had no doubt issued their chivalrous order in 
the hope that the poor fainting woman might show weakness 
in the death-cart or on the scaffold, and so disgrace F Aiitri- 
chienne, but their base intent was frustrated. 

At ten o'clock the turnkey Lariviere was sent by the 
concierge into the cell ; and to him we owe some knowledge 
of what passed there. The queen said to him sadly: 
" Lariviere, you know I am about to die. Tell your respect- 
able mother^ that I thank her for her services to me, and 
beg her to pray God for me." 

Three judges, accompanied by the greffier Fabricius, en- 
tered the cell. The queen was kneeling in prayer beside 
her little bed, but she rose to receive them. They told her 
to attend, as her sentence was to be read to her. She re- 
plied in a firm voice : " Such a reading is useless ; I know 
the sentence only too well." They insisted, however, and 
the clerk read the document. At that moment Henri Sanson 

1 The poissarde of whom at first she had had reason to complain. 

16 



242 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

appeared, a young man of gigantic stature. He said roughly 
to tlie poor woman, " Hold out your hands." Her Majesty 
retreated a step, and pleaded that the king had not been 
bound. " Do your duty," cried the judges to Sanson. " Oh! 
mon Dieii r'' cried the wretched queen; she thought that 
she was then and there to be assassinated. Sanson roughly 
seized the shrinking hands, and tied them with cruel force 
too tight behind her back. She looked up to heaven and 
tried to restrain her tears. Her hair, when cut off, Sanson 
thrust into his pocket, and it was burnt in the vestibule. 
So far we have the evidence of Lariviere. 

Marie Antoinette was dressed in a white peigfiozr, which 
usually served her for a morning gown, and v^^ore di fichu de 
mousseline crossed over her breast. On her head was a little 
plain white linen cap. On that morning, when about to 
rejoin her husband, she would wear no mourning. A 
Constitutional priest, M. Girard, cur6 of St. Landry, was 
appointed to attend her, but she refused his ministrations. 
All was ready, and she looked round her cell for the last 
time. As she passed along the corridors on her way to the 
cart, she saw several of the other prisoners in the Concier- 
gerie, and took a farewell of them. She asked for a drink 
of water ; and one prisoner, Madame Caron, brought it to 
her, in a cup which is now preserved as a precious relic in 
the family of the Comte de Roiset. She drew near the grim 
office where the business of the prison was transacted, on 
her way to the portal, at which a tumbril, drawn by a white 
horse, awaited her. " This is the moment in which to show 
courage," said M. Girard. Her proud reply still echoes 
through the history of the Conciergerie. " Du courage ? 11 
y a si longtemps que j'en fais I'apprentissage ! Croyez-vous 
qu'il m'en manquera aujourd'hui? " ^ 

She was once more in the open air, and mounted the 
cart with difficulty, owing to her bound hands. She ap- 
peared calm and indifferent to the cruel cries of the mob. 
Near St. Roch she was foully insulted ; but at the angle of 

1 " Courage ? I have so long been learning it as an apprentice; do 
you think it will fail me on this day ? " 



SCENES IN THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 243 

the Rue Royale, the Abb6 Paget, attired as a layman, but 
recognizable by her, managed, to her infinite comfort, to 
make her a sign which assured her of absolution i?t articido 
mortis. The scaffold was not erected exactly where that of 
Louis XVI. had stood. It was placed about thirty me- 
tres from the pedestal on which the guillotine for the king 
had stood, on which now had been erected a statue to 
Liberty. By accident she trod on Sanson's foot, and in 
spite of the terrors of the moment the instinct of a lady 
impelled her to apologize to the executioner. When mount- 
ing the steps of the scaffold she lost a shoe, which was 
picked up and sold for a louis. So long as it was possible, 
her eyes were raised to heaven. The plank dropped ; the 
knife fell ; and the executioner held up the head to show it 
to the populace. 



BOOK IV. 

THE REIGN OF TERROR. 

I. Marat. 

II. Danton. 

III. The Feast of the Supreme Being. 

IV. The Fall of Robespierre. 
V. A Chapter of Episodes. 

Robespierre as a Poet. — Robespierre's Private Life at 
the Duplays'. — The Revolutionary Calendar. — Dogs 
in the Revolution. — " Which? " by Fran9ois Coppee. 



CHAPTER I. 

MARAT. 

T "^ TE are in the habit of speaking of Marat, Danton, and 
^ ^ Robespierre, the three leaders of the Revolution 
during the Reign of Terror, as if they had acted together in 
some official capacity, — formed, in short, a triumvirate like 
that of Octavius, Lepidus, and Antony. This is not correct. 
What the government of France was during the Reign of 
Terror it is very hard to define. Power was wielded by 
each of these three men, but they were rarely colleagues. 
When the king was deposed after the loth of August, the 
will of the Convention was the only recognized government. 
Danton was then a deputy, — a young penniless lawyer 
of Arcis-sur-Aube, with the face of a lion, the voice of a 
trumpet, and the figure of a Hercules. He had taken 
a leading part in the deposition of the king and the pro- 
clamation of a republic. Marat, after exciting the people by 
incendiary articles in his newspaper, " L'Ami du Peuple " 
(subsequently the "Journal de la R^publique"), had pulled 
the bell of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, which sounded the tocsin 




MARAT 



MARA T. 245 

on the loth of August. Robespierre was not seen during 
those days, till he quietly reappeared, when calm was re- 
established, as a member of the Council of the Commune. 
Those members were apparently self appointed, after the old 
municipal authorities had been driven away ; and Marat was 
called to preside over his colleagues. 

The Convention, not being able to superintend all business 
as a body, selected a Committee of Surveillance^ which soon 
became the Committee of Public Safety. Its members seem 
to have acted as ministers. Danton was made minister of 
justice, and assumed the right of making military appoint- 
ments, while Carnot regulated the movements of the thirteen 
armies of France. Danton had risen to importance in the 
Convention through his prominence in promoting the depo- 
sition of the king and the establishment of a republic. His 
rough-and-ready eloquence also gave him great importance, 
especially as a leader of the Sections. He has been called the 
Sans-culotte Mirabeau ; he might also have been called 
the " noble savage of the eighteenth century," — for much 
in him was noble, and all was savage. His was a noble pres- 
ence when he stood up in the Convention, calm among his 
colleagues, who were terrified by the threatened advance of 
the Prussians, and by the clangor of the bells that called to 
arms, and shouted : " Legislators ! it is not the alarm cannon 
that you hear ; it is the pas de charge against our enemies. 
To conquer them, to hurl them back, what do we require ? 
// nous faut de Vaudace, et encore de Paudace^ et toujours de 
Vaudace!" (To dare, and again to dare, and without end 
to dare !) 

Danton was prominent in the affair of the loth of August, 
and may be said to have captured the municipal authority 
at the Hotel de Ville upon that day. There had been sixty^ 
two districts in Paris, the most revolutionary of which was 
that of the Cordeliers ; in this Danton, who lived within its 
bounds, had been prominent from the time of his arrival in 
Paris. The Districts subsequently became forty-eight Sec- 
tions, that of the Cordeliers retaining its name. 

These Sections were at the beck and call of the municipal 



246 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

government of the Commune at the Hotel de Ville. The 
Sections and the municipality formed the Commune ; and 
though Marat was decreed especial honors by this body, the 
heart and soul of its actions for a time was Danton. Early 
in 1792, two clubs had broken off from the Jacobins, one 
going to the right under Lafayette, — this was the Feuillants ; 
the other going to the left under Danton, — this was the 
Cordeliers. Robespierre retained his connection with that 
of the Jacobins to the last. 

Danton has always been accused of instigating and organ- 
izing the massacres of September in the prisons. His name 
does not appear on official documents in connection with 
those massacres. Marat and nine others signed a paper 
applauding what had been done in Paris, and exhorting the 
municipalities of other cities to do likewise. Marat de- 
manded two hundred and sixty thousand heads of aristocrats 
(some say two hundred and seventy thousand) to purge 
the country. 

Danton's guilt in connection with the September mas- 
sacres seems, however, to have been determined by history. 
At the same date he was calling out all Frenchmen to 
resist invasion, and it was not inconsistent with his theories 
that he endeavored, by the terrorism of massacre and pun- 
ishment, to break the spirit of the royalists remaining in the 
capital, while French soldiers were marching to meet 
emigres and Prussians on the frontier. 

The prominent part assumed by Danton at this crisis 
drew on him the jealousy and hatred of the more backward 
Robespierre. They seem rarely after this to have acted 
together except when both disapproved the sacrilegious 
festival of Reason, with its goddess and its orgy ; and Dan- 
ton united with Robespierre to bring Hubert, the instigator 
of that sacrilegious fete, to the scaffold. 

Robespierre was a man of theories, — what the French 
would call a doctrinaire revolutionist ; he showed the same 
tendency in domestic life in relation to matters of expense 
and minor things. Danton was an opportunist, ready to 
take advantage of anything that might promote his views. 



MARA T. 



247 



Marat, on the contrary, was hardly what might be called a 
repubhcan. He was a socialist and an anarchist of the 
most advanced type, and it was as an enemy of republican- 
ism that he met his death at the hands of Charlotte Corday. 
Real republicans were ashamed of him. He was the idol 
of the dregs of the Parisian populace. He had been more 
than once in hiding, and several times on the verge of 
denunciation and arrest. He was not a speaker who had 
great influence in the clubs or in the Convention ; he was 
not a member of the Committee of Public Safely ; he was 
not a ruler who, for good or for evil, could sway the Sections 
through the Commune ; but as L ''Ami du Peuple he could 
rouse them through his daily sheet to frenzy. His doctrine 
was that which we now call Nihihsm, — simple destruction 
of all that is, which others must take the task of building 
up again, — their work to be also destroyed in the future. 
Marat was the first to meet his death of these three leaders 
of the Revolution. 

The Revolution, like Saturn, devoured its own children. 
Those who set up the guillotine perished by the guillotine. 
These few words seemed necessary before recording the 
last days of Marat, Danton, and Robespierre. The Giron- 
dists and their party had been poHtically extinguished by 
the events of May 30 and June 2, 1794; on the first of 
these days a mob demanded their expulsion from the k%- 
serably, but without result. Three days later, a second mob 
succeeded. 

The greater part of the leading Girondists, after their ex- 
pulsion and proscription, went into hiding in Paris ; ^ the rest 
fled to the provinces. Eighteen of these last, among them 
Barbaroux, Buzot, Gorgas, and Petion, had taken refuge at 
Caen in Normandy. 

This city had become a centre of agitation. It was 
republican, but it was opposed to extreme measures, and 
had resolved to set itself in opposition to the tyranny of the 
Convention. A committee, sitting in the Hotel de Ville, 

1 From the " Supplement Litteraire du Figaro" of July 15, 1893, 
— July 13, 1793, being the date of the death of Marat. — E. W. L. 



248 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

had assembled a small body of troops under command 
of Generals Wimpffen and Puisaye. The Girondists there- 
fore looked on Caen as a place prepared to make resistance. 
But events turned out differently from what they antici- 
pated. Instead of the men whom they relied upon, their 
cause was taken up by a woman. 

There lived at Caen in those days a girl of the age of 
twenty-four, who concealed under an exterior of almost 
angelic gentleness an active imagination and a mind full of 
enthusiasm. 

She had up to this time lived unknown and in obscurity, 
though her family had an illustrious origin. She was grand- 
daughter of the great dramatist, Corneille, and she cherished 
in her heart the same feelings and ideas as those which 
animated the heroines in her grandfather's tragedies. But 
bolder than Emilia in his tragedy of " Cinna," she not only 
conceived her plan but carried it out. 

Her person was handsome. One of her contemporaries 
has given us her portrait. 

"Mademoiselle Corday," he says, "was not tall, but she 
was strongly built. Her face was oval, her features hand- 
some, but on rather a large scale. Her eyes were blue 
and keen, her nose well shaped, her mouth and teeth were 
excellent. Her hair was a rich light brown ; her arms and 
hands might have served as models for a sculptor. Her gait 
and her deportment were full of grace and self-respect." 

Marie Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont was born in 
1768 at St. Saturnin on the Orne. Her father hved on a 
small property in the neighborhood. Although his birth 
connected him with the nobility, he was an earnest partisan 
of the new doctrines. Possibly his poverty inclined him to 
accept them. He was, indeed, very much straitened in his 
circumstances, and his wife had died of the strain, after having 
given him five children, — two sons and three daughters. 

As his children grew older and needed education, which 
to give them was beyond his means, he was forced to part 
from them, and he was glad to place Charlotte in a convent 
at Caen, the Abbaye aux Dames. 



MARA T. 249 

The mother superior, Madame de Belzunce, and her 
coadjutrix, Madame Doulcet de Pontecoulant, took a great 
deal of notice of Charlotte and admitted her to intimacy. 
It was through this intimacy that Charlotte came to know 
M. de Belzunce, a young colonel of cavalry, and Gustave 
Doulcet de Pontecoulant, both relatives of these ladies. 

But the Revolutionary hurricane destroyed the peaceful 
refuge in which Charlotte passed her early girlhood. Con- 
vents were suppressed ; and the young girl, who could not 
return to her father, who was now more than ever unable 
to support her, went to live with an old aunt, Madame de 
Bretteville. This old lady inhabited an ancient, dismal- 
looking house called the Grand Manoir. It had nothing 
grand about it but its name, having only two stories and 
three windows looking on the street, from which it was 
separated by a little paved courtyard. An arched door, 
low and narrow, served for its entrance. A dark passage 
and a spiral staircase led to the living-rooms on the upper 
floor. 

Charlotte's bedroom was at one end of the house. With 
its brick floor and its high French ceiling and its immense 
fireplace, it looked bare and comfortless. Its furniture was 
scanty, and it was badly lighted, — though it had two win- 
dows, one with small diamond-shaped panes, which looked 
out cyi the courtyard, while the other overlooked the yard 
of a neighbor. 

But Charlotte little cared for this. She lived with her 
own thoughts, and her thoughts flew far from her little dark 
chamber. She gave some help indeed in the household, 
which had the services of only one old servant ; but the rest 
of her time was passed in reading and dreaming. 

Having entire liberty to read what she liked, she devoured 
all books that fell into her hands. "The Adventures of 
Faublas," and the " Nouvelle He'loise," for example ; books 
of philosophy and romances. The authors she preferred 
were, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Plutarch, and the Abb6 Raynal, 
whose " Histoire philosophique des Etablissements et du Com- 
merce des Deux Indes " especially excited her admiration. 



250 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The words " Republic " and " Liberty " filled her with en- 
thusiasm. She took the deepest interest in political events. 
She contrived to see all the pamphlets that appeared at that 
period. She is said to have read over five hundred of them. 
She also subscribed to five newspapers, one of which, the 
" Courier des Departements," was edited by the Girondist 
Gorsas, and another, " La Patriote Frangaise," by Brissot and 
Girey-Dupre. 

Lonely as she was, all this reading made on her mind and 
heart a deep impression. Plutarch, when he told her the 
fives of great men, inspired her first with admiration, then 
with the desire to emulate them. 

Her excited imagination — she having no one with whom 
she could exchange ideas — made her live, as it were, in 
company with these heroes. She identified herself with 
their exalted thoughts, their noble or' generous actions, and 
she began to cherish the idea that she too might be capable 
of doing something great. Her ardor was intensified by 
the very air she breathed. Circumstances were propitious 
to great deeds ; men's minds were excited. No one listened 
with indifference to such words as " the new order of things," 
"our country," "liberty," and so forth, which were stirring 
up Old France, and seemed to predict for her a glorious 
and happy future. 

Charlotte, like the ancient heroes she admired, was an 
ardent republican. She had heartily embraced the repub- 
lican cause ; but she desired a republic as pure as it would 
be great, and she thought the Girondist party alone likely to 
realize her ideal. 

She was waiting, she was hoping all things from this 
party, when suddenly things changed. Those whom she 
politically loved and believed in were overthrown, van- 
quished, marked out for destruction ! Their place was 
usurped by men of blood, — men who sullied the fair 
image she had made to herself of the government that 
should be. 

Must all that she had hoped, all she had planned for, go 
down in this shipwreck? Never! 



MARAT. 251 

She thought of her heroes who had died to save their 
country. She wished to do as they had done, — to be their 
equal. There was one man who by his writings and his 
speeches had drawn all eyes upon him. He had asked for 
heads ; he invoked executions, — and against such things 
Charlotte Corday had set her face. Marat inspired more 
horror seen from a distance than when he was seen near ; 
not only horror, but fear. It was Marat, the monster, 
who must be stricken down. 

If no one else dared to attempt the task, she would accept 
it. She would shed his blood, and give her own in exchange. 
What matter? She would have achieved true glory. 
Glory and the gratitude of the thousands she would have 
saved would be hers. 

Having come to this resolution, she set about its execu- 
tion. She wanted neither confidant nor accomplice. The 
work should be all her own. 

Her contemporaries, who could not comprehend her 
motives, at the time accounted for her action by saying that 
love and vengeance must have nerved her arm. But there 
is not a particle of evidence for these vulgar conjectures. 

Fouquier-Tinville was the first to make the insinuation. 
He said, " This female assassin was in love with De Belzunce, 
a colonel killed at Caen during an insurrection, and from the 
time of his death she conceived implacable hatred against 
Marat." The truth is that she hardly knew De Belzunce, 
who was killed on the 12th of August, 1792 ; and the first 
number of Marat's infamous paper, '■'■ L'Ami du Peuple," did 
not appear till the following 12th of September. 

As for Barbaroux, she saw him only three times at Caen, 
and Barbaroux was then living with a woman named Zelia, 
who never quitted him. 

A M. de Franquehn has also been named as Charlotte's 
lover, and a M. Boisjugan de Mingre. It is not even known 
that she ever saw either of them. 

Later another man was mentioned, a M. Bougon-Longrais, 
procicreiir syndic of Calvados. This much is true, that he 
had an affection for Charlotte which may have amounted to 



252 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

love ; but it is equally certain that there exists not the 
smallest indication that she returned his affection. She 
expressed much friendship for him ; he was young and 
amiable. She appreciated his merits, and they had many 
opinions and ideas in common ; but in the mention she 
made of him in the letter she wrote to Barbaroux in her 
last hours, it would be hard to find anything but sympathy 
and esteem. 

The fugitive Girondists had taken up their quarters in the 
Hotel de I'lntendance. Charlotte did not know them, but 
she formed a plan to go and see them, and to enter into 
relations with them. 

She needed a pretext for her visit, and found it in her 
interest in Madame de Forbin, an old friend whom she had 
made in the convent, who had lost her pension as a canoness, 
because she had emigrated six months before. She thought 
she might influence the proscribed deputies in her friend's 
favor. 

With this design she went, on the 20th of June, to the 
Hotel de I'lntendance. She saw Barbaroux, and made her 
request to him. The Girondin deputy assured her that 
anything he might say would be worse than useless. But 
she had her own ideas, and persisted. Then Barbaroux, 
taking up a pen, wrote to his colleague in the Assembly, 
Louis Duperret, who had remained in Paris, begging him to 
do what he could for Madame Forbin. 

Barbaroux received no answer, for the letter never reached 
its destination. Charlotte was far from regretting this. It 
assisted her in her true design. She resolved to go to Paris 
and, as she said, attend to the affair herself; she would call 
on the minister of the interior. 

The project soon took shape, and Charlotte prepared for 
her journey. She was to start early in July. Before leaving 
home she was present at a review held by General Wimpffen. 
Under the very eyes of the populace an appeal was to be 
made for volunteers to form a picked band to march to Paris 
and put down the Convention. But only seventeen volun- 
teers stepped out of the ranks. Charlotte admired their 



MARAT. 253 

courage, and, far from being disheartened by the smalhiess 
of their number, she felt her own purpose fired by their 
example. 

She asked Barbaroux for a letter of introduction to Louis 
Duperret. Barbaroux, who suspected nothing, gave her the 
letter. It contained these passages : — 

" I wrote you by way of Rouen to ask your good offices 
in an affair which concerns a lady who is our fellow-citizen. 
All that you need do is to get from the minister of the in- 
terior certain papers in the case, which you will forward 
to Caen. ... All goes well here : we shall soon be under 
the walls of Paris." 

Charlotte continued to conceal her design. Before setting 
out she paid a visit to the abbess of the convent where she 
had passed her childhood, but gave not the smallest indica- 
tion, either in word or manner, of the real purpose of her 
journey. 

Once only she let fall a few words which, had any one 
who heard them entertained any suspicion, might have given 
a clue to the real reason of her journey. When Potion was 
complimenting la belle aristocrate, who was willing to visit 
republicans, she said : " You judge of me without knowing 
me. Citizen Pdtion. The time will come when you will know 
better what I am." 

The morning that she started on her journey she thus 
wrote to her father : — 

I owe you obedience, dear papa, but nevertheless I am going 
without asking your leave. I go too without seeing you ; it 
would give me too much pain. I am going to England because 
I do not think it possible to live happily in France for a long 
time to come. As I leave I shall put this letter for you in the 
post, and when you receive it I shall be no longer in this land. 
Heaven has withheld from us the happiness of living together, 
as well as many other good things. Perhaps it may show more 
favor to our country. 

Adieu, my dear papa; kiss my sister for me, and never 
forget me. 

(Signed) Corday. 



254 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

At two o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, July 9, she left 
Caen, taking the diligence for Paris. 

The journey lasted two days. On Thursday, the nth, she 
reached Paris, and went to the house of Madame Grollier, 
Hotel de la Providence^ 19 Rue des Vieux Augustins, a 
street now partly destroyed. That same day she went to see 
Duperret, who Hved in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. 
She did not find him at home ; he was at the Convention. 

She called again in the evening, and told him the osten- 
sible purpose of her visit, and he promised to go with her 
the next day to see the minister of the interior. 

After she left, Duperret said to his daughters : — 

" That seems an odd adventure ! The woman seems to 
me to be intriguing about something. I saw something in 
her face and in her manner which struck me as singular. 
To-morrow I shall know what it all means ! " 

The next day, July 12, he called for Charlotte, and took 
her to see the minister. Their visit was not received, and 
they were told to come back in the evening. By this time 
Duperret had altered his first impression of Charlotte. " I 
perceived nothing in what she said but what indicated a 
good citoyemiey 

At this moment a thing happened which overthrew their 
plans. Duperret, who was already suspected of holding com- 
munications with his proscribed colleagues, was put under 
surveillance. His house was searched, and seals put upon 
his papers. 

He was not yet arrested, and he went to warn Charlotte, 
telling her that his recommendation was now useless and 
might compromise her. 

Charlotte thanked him, and said that she should do no 
more about it. The pretext had served her purpose, and 
she was not going to carry the matter further. 

Duperret questioned her as to what she intended to do, 
and asked if she would soon go back to Normandy. She 
answered that she did not know exactly, but that he would 
hear from her, and he had better not come and see her 
again. 



MARAT. 



255 



As they were about to separate, Charlotte seems to have 
become conscious of her imprudence. She began to feel 
that she had probably terribly compromised this innocent 
man, who had so kindly tried to serve her. 

" May I give you a piece of advice ? " she said, " Leave 
the Convention. You can do no further good in it. Go 
down at once to Caen and rejoin your colleagues, — your 
brothers." 

" My place is in Pari's. I must not leave my post." 

" You are acting foolishly. . . . Again I say escape. Leave 
before to-morrow evening." 

He persisted in his brave resolve. She had already said 
too much. She stood silent. He was amazed, but went 
away, not having understood her meaning, and never guess- 
ing how these three brief interviews would tell against him. 

Meantime Charlotte made inquiries concerning Marat. 
She learned that he was ill, and not going to the Convention. 
She had to give up her first design of killing him in his seat 
on the summit of the Mountain. She determined to go and 
kill him in his own home. 

She spent Friday evening drawing up an address, ^' Aux 
frangais, amis des Lois et de la Paix^ 

"How long, O unhappy Frenchmen, will you take de- 
light in disputes and in divisions ? . . . O France ! thy 
repose depends on the execution of thy laws ; I do not vio- 
late them by the killing of Marat ; condemned by the whole 
universe, he is an outlaw. . . . What court will condemn me ? 
If I am guilty, Hercules was guilty when he destroyed mon- 
sters. But were the monsters that he slew as hateful to 
mankind as Marat ? . . . O my country ! thy misfortunes 
rend my heart. I can only offer thee my life, and I thank 
Heaven for giving me the right so to dispose of it. . . . " 

Then came some lines which the grand-daughter of Cor- 
neille took from Voltaire's " Mort de C^sar " : — 

" Whether the world, astonished, loads my name 
And deed with horror, admiration, blame, 
I do not care, — nor care to live in story. 
I act, indifferent to reproach or glory. 



256 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

A free, untrammelled patriot am I. 

Duty accomplished, let the rest go by .' 

Think only, friends, how you may break your chains." . . .1 

She then ends her paper with these brief words : — 

" My friends and relations should not be molested : no 
one whatever knows what I intend to do." 

On Saturday, July 13, 1793, Charlotte rose early, and by 
six o'clock she was at the Palais Royal. Boys and men 
were crying through the streets the morning news, telling 
how nine citizens of Orleans had been condemned to death 
the night before, ostensibly for the murder of Leonard 
Bourdon, who was perfectly uninjured. Charlotte bought 
a paper, then she went into a cutler's shop, and paid forty 
sous for a knife with an ebony handle in a shagreen sheath. 
She then went back to her hotel. At half-past eleven she 
came downstairs, took a fiacre on the Place des Victoires, 
and was driven to the residence of Marat, Rue des Corde- 
liers (subsequently Rue de I'Ecole de Me'decine), Number 
20. But it was not an easy matter to get admitted to the 
presence of L'A7tii du Peuple. The portress, named Pain, 
the cook Jeannette Marechal, Simone Evrard, the woman who 
lived with him, and her sister kept strict watch. Charlotte 
was told that Marat was sick, it was doubtful when he could 
receive her ; and they refused to hear the entreaties of a 
woman they did not know. 

Charlotte went back to her hotel and wrote a letter to 
Marat which she sent by la petite paste. 

" Citizen, — I have just come from Caen ; your love for our 
country makes me think you would be glad to know something 
of the unfortunate events in that part of the Republic. I will 
come to your house about one o'clock. Have the kindness to 

1 " Qu'a I'univers, surpris, cette grande action 
Soit un objet d'horreur, ou d'admiration, 
Mon esprit, peu jaloux de vivre en la memoire, 
Ne considere point la reproche, ou la gloire. 
Toujours independent, et toujours citoyen, 
Mon devoir me sufBt — tout le reste m'est rien. 
Allez ! ne songez plus qu'a sortir de I'esclavage ! " . . . 



MARAT. 



257 



receive me, and to grant me a few minutes' interview. I will put 
you in the way to render a great service to the Republic." 

That done, she put off the execution of her project till 
the evening. 

Now as to Marat. He was a man undersized and badly 
built, with a sallow complexion. He dressed with a care- 
lessness almost amounting to filthiness, and went about 
always muffled in an old green cloak trimmed with fur. 
He wore a sort of handkerchief upon his head, and 
"looked," said one of his fellow-deputies, "like a needy 
hackney-coachman." As rude in speech as he was careless 
in dress, he called everybody cochon, bete, and animal,^ and 
treated every one accordingly. 

As to his principles and disposition, he was a sanguinary 
madman. He dreamed of nothing but death and annihi- 
lation. His pohcy consisted only in extermination. All 
honest men were attacked in his paper ; he was purveyor for 
the guillotine, the most shameful blot upon the Revolution. 

It was thus that Charlotte Corday looked on the man she 
was about to sacrifice. It was the general opinion of him, 
the opinion Marat himself wished people to entertain, and 
nothing since has come to light to modify it. 

But this portrait, although like him in the last years of his 
life, differs greatly from any portrait that could have been 
drawn of him when he was younger. 

He had been a man of literature and science ; these 
things in 1793 had disappeared; he was simply a ferocious 
partisan. He had been a young man of elegance and 
distinction ; he had sunk into a squalid, dirty sans-adotte. 

He was born May 24, 1 743, at Boudry, in Switzerland ; 
his father had come from Caghari in Sardinia. He received 
a good education, which he completed in literature at 
Geneva. 

After that he travelled much in Europe,^ learned most of 

1 No terms of reproach in French are more insulting. 

2 Dumas says ill-treatment in Russia soured his whole nature and 
unsettled his mind. — E. W. L. 

17 



258 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

the European languages, and called himself, in the language 
of that day, " a student of humanity." 

While in England he got his diploma as a doctor, and 
about 1777, on his return to France, he was made doctor to 
the body-guard of the Comte d'Artois. He had at that 
time so high a reputation for skill in his profession that 
people paid him thirty-six livres a visit. 

One remarkably successful cure increased his reputation, 
his good fortune, and the jealousy of a large number of his 
fellow-doctors. 

The Marquise de Laubespine, niece of one of the most 
illustrious of the king's ministers, was very ill, and Bouvart, 
a very celebrated physician of that day, pronounced her 
case hopeless. Marat was sent for, promised to effect a 
perfect cure, and kept his word. 

The poor woman, full of gratitude, was willing to testify 
it in every possible way : and Marat became her lover. 
Then, to please her, he affected the dress and manners of a 
man of fashion, even carrying his care for the refinements of 
the toilette to an extreme. 

Much occupied as he was with the duties of his profession, 
they did not cause him to give up his taste for scientific 
research. He was interested in heat, light, and electricity. 
He pubhshed several works upon these subjects which gave 
him a considerable reputation as a savatit. 

He flung himself at once into the Revolutionary move- 
ment; but his views of the Revolution differed from those 
that most other people interested in it at its beginning 
entertained. He thought the disputes between the Three 
Orders in the States-General absurd. The abolition of 
the privileges of rank by the nobility seemed to him a 
ridiculous concession. He did not divide the world into 
nobles and non-nobles, but into rich and poor ; and he saw 
no sense in giving political liberty to men perishing of 
hunger. 

He became the champion of the needy and the famine- 
stricken. He called himself, and made others call him 
The People's Friend, — VAmi du Peuple. The class to 



MARAT. 259 

whom he gave his sympathy gave him in return its affection 
and support ; and he thus attained immense popularity and 
power. 

By degrees the excitement of the struggle and the fashion 
of exaggerating patriotism made him lose his head. All ob- 
stacles irritated him, resistance exasperated him, and perse- 
cution had the result of turning his humanitarianism into 
ferocious hatred. A skin disease which kept him in a con- 
tinual state of bodily irritation completed his transformation. 

Yet even thus something of his former attractiveness lin- 
gered about him. Fabre d'Eglantine has described him, 
and his portrait is worth being retained : — 

" Marat was a very small man, hardly five feet high ; but 
he was strongly built, neither too fat nor too lean. . . . He 
used his arms gracefully, and with much gesticulation. His 
neck was short, his face broad and bony. His nose was 
aquiline, but it looked as if it had been flattened. His 
mouth had a contraction at one corner. His forehead was 
wide, his eyes hght hazel, full of spirit, life, and keenness ; 
their natural expression was gentle and kindly. His eye- 
brows were scanty, his complexion sallow, his beard dark, 
his hair brown and disorderly. He walked rapidly, with his 
head thrown back. His favorite attitude was to cross his 
arms over his chest. He gesticulated a great deal when he 
talked in company, and would stamp his foot to emphasize 
his words ; sometimes he would rise on tiptoe when he be- 
came vehement. His voice was sonorous, but he had a 
defect in his tongue which made it hard for him to pro- 
nounce clearly c and s. Yet, when accustomed to his voice, 
the earnestness of his thoughts, the plenitude of his expres- 
sions, the simphcity of his eloquence, and the brevity of 
his words made his hearers forget the slight defect in his 
enunciation." -^ 

In the time of his greatest straits and difficulties, about 
the year 1790, Marat found in the attachment of a woman 
the support and the pecuniary aid he so much needed. This 

1 This has been slightly abridged. Fabre d'Eglantine did not 
cultivate brevity of speech. — E. W. L. 



260 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

woman, Simone Evrard, devoted herself to him and became 
his inseparable companion. She watched over him with 
jealous care. 

For eighteen months before July, 1 793, Marat had lived 
with her in a little appartement on the first floor of a house 
in the Rue des Cordeliers. 

A large arched passage led to the staircase. Near the 
door hung an iron chain, to which a bell was fastened. The 
visitor first entered a rather dingy ante-chamber; then on 
the right hand was the dining-room, separated by another 
room from the little closet in which Marat was accustomed 
to take his bath. 

About half-past seven in the evening of the fatal day, 
Charlotte Corday, with another letter in her hand addressed 
to Marat in case he should not have received the first, again 
went to his house in the Rue des Cordeliers. 

As before, a close watch guarded all approach to V Ami 
du Peuple. She met with another refusal. She persisted, 
and a discussion ensued, the noise of which reached the ears 
of Marat. He called Simone Evrard, and asked who wanted 
to see him ; and, as he had received Charlotte's first letter 
written that morning, he was curious to hear what she might 
have to tell him respecting the situation at Caen. He there- 
fore gave orders that she should be admitted. 

Marat was in his bath-tub, of the form of a slipper. He 
was wrapped in a sheet, which left his arms and shoulders 
bare. He was writing on a Httle plank placed before him. 
He asked his visitor to sit down at his left hand. They thus 
found themselves on a line ; both had their backs turned to 
the little window which looked on the courtyard. They 
were alone. 

Marat began to question Charlotte on the troubles at 
Caen. She answered that eighteen deputies from the Con- 
vention, in conjunction with the authorities of the Depart- 
ment, reigned supreme there, and that all the men were 
getting themselves enrolled in order to march on Paris and 
dehver it over to lawlessness. They were commanded, she 
said, by the four deputies of the Department. 



MARAT. 261 

He asked the names of those deputies, and of their prin- 
cipal supporters. 

She named Gorsas, Lariviere, Buzot, Barbaroux, Louvet, 
Bergoeing, Potion, and others ; she mentioned also four 
more, called administrators. 

While she spoke he was writing. When she ended, " I '11 
have them all guillotined in Paris before long," he said. 

At this, as if she had only waited for some fresh proof of 
Marat's thirst for blood, she rose, grasped the knife she had 
concealed in her dress, and with one thrust plunged it into 
his breast. 

" A moi !'''' (Help !) he called to Simone Evrard. 

A man named Laurent Bas was in the house, — a folder 
of Marat's newspaper. He heard the cry and rushed in ; he 
met Charlotte Corday in the next room, knocked her down, 
and held her tight, bruising her cruelly. 

The noise brought Simone Evrard to the spot. She 
sprang over the body of Charlotte and rushed to Marat. 
Blood was flowing in great drops from his wound. She 
tried to stop it with her hand, but in vain ; the water in the 
bath-tub grew rapidly red. 

At this moment came in a dentist who lodged in the 
house. He had his office there, and through his window, 
which commanded a view of Marat's bathroom, he had wit- 
nessed the bloody spectacle. He put a compress on the 
wound at once. Marat was lifted from his bath and placed 
upon his bed. Soon it became evident that his pulse had 
ceased to beat. L'Ami du Peuple was dead. 

Meantime men from the guard-house of the Theatre 
Frangais (now the Odeon) rushed to the spot, for the news 
spread rapidly. They rescued Charlotte from Laurent Bas 
and the women of Marat's household, bound her hands, and 
stood guard over her. 

The commissioner of police soon arrived and questioned 
her. She answered clearly and simply, with perfect sa7ig- 
froid. She told her motive for the crime. " She had 
seen," she said, " civil war about to break out in France ; 
and believing that Marat was the chief cause of such a 



262 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

disaster, she had sacrificed her own life and his to save her 
country." 

Had she premeditated the murder ? She answered, " I 
should not have left Caen had I not intended to do it." 

They asked her if she had not tried to escape through the 
window. 

" No," she repHed. " Had I escaped, it would have been 
by the door. But I was stopped before I reached it." 

The commissioner had her searched. In her pockets 
they found twenty-five silver crowns, a silver thimble, several 
assignats, a passport, a gold watch, a trunk-key, and a ball 
of fine thread. 

The sheath of the knife she had used was still in her dress. 
Other police commissioners came in ; one of them saw a 
paper in her bosom, — the undelivered letter to Marat. He 
put out his hand to seize it ; and she, dreading some inso- 
lence, drew back so forcibly that the lacing of her dress 
burst, and she found her bosom uncovered. Then she 
begged piteously that they would untie her hands a moment, 
and allow her to readjust her corsage. An assistant did her 
this service. 

She showed her wrists, cut and chafed by the cords, and 
begged that they would let her pull down her sleeves and 
put on gloves to hide the wounds made on her wrists by 
binding them. These requests were granted, and she re- 
covered her habitual serenit)'. 

The whole evening had been taken up by these formali- 
ties, but the most terrible was to come. She was to be 
confronted with the corpse of the man she had murdered. 
About midnight she was taken to where his body lay upon 
his bed. 

"Yes," she said; '^yes! I killed him." Her voice trem- 
bled with emotion. 

Late as it was, an angry crowd surrounded the house. 
Charlotte had to be got out of it and taken to prison. It 
had been decided that that prison should be the Abbaye. As 
soon as she appeared, cries, shouts of rage, and threats of 
vengeance rose on all sides. She came near being torn in 




CHARLOTTE CORDA\. 



MARAT. 263 

pieces. . . . Overcome by all she had gone through during 
the day, she fainted. 

But she came to herself speedily, astonished and disap- 
pointed to find herself still living. 

" I have accomplished my work," she said as she revived ; 
" others must do the rest." 

When she was safe within the walls of the Abbaye, they 
searched her room at the hotel, and, finding the name and 
address of Citizen Duperret on a piece of paper, he was at 
once arrested. 

The news of the murder flew rapidly through Paris, caus- 
ing great astonishment and much excited feeling. Every 
leading "patriot" thought himself in danger. "The deed 
may have been done by a woman," they said, "but her party 
inspired it." 

The next day a mob swarmed into the Convention. Sev- 
eral of the Sections presented addresses, and the orator of 
one of them cried, " Where art thou, David, — thou who hast 
handed down to posterity the portrait of Lepelletier de Saint- 
Fargeau dying for his country? — Now another scene has 
been prepared for thee ! " 

" I will paint it ! " exclaimed David. 

In the Council of the Commune Hebert proposed an 
apotheosis of Marat. The next day the Convention passed 
a decree that its members in a body should attend his ob- 
sequies. The day was fixed for Tuesday, July 16, 1793. 

The body was embalmed, but with some difficulty, and a 
magnificent funeral was prepared. The tomb alone cost 
two thousand dollars, and the whole expense of the celebra- 
tion amounted to rather over fifty-six hundred. 

He was buried in the garden of the Cordeliers, beneath 
some trees. Patriotic addresses were pronounced over him, 
and the lower classes, who really believed him to be L'Ami 
du Pejiple, mourned for him. On his tomb it was recorded 
that he had been murdered by the people's enemies. 

Charlotte at the Abbaye was placed in the cell once occu- 
pied by Madame Roland, and afterwards by Brissot. Two 
gendarmes were placed also in the cell with orders not to lose 



264 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

sight of her by day or night. She asked at once for pen, 
ink, and paper, and wrote the following letter : — 

To Citizens cotnfiosing the Committee of Public Safety : — 

Since I have still a brief time to live, may I hope, citizens, 
that you will permit me to have my portrait painted. I should 
like to leave this mark of my remembrance to my friends. 
Besides which, even as men cherish the memory of good citi- 
zens, so curiosity sometimes makes them seek memorials of 
great criminals, which serves to perpetuate horror for their 
crimes. If you deign to pay attention to my request, I beg you 
will send me to-morrow some painter of miniatures. I again 
implore you to let me be alone while I sleep. In which case 
believe I pray you, in all my gratitude. 

Marie Corday. 

That same day Charlotte began a long letter to Barbaroux. 
She had promised to send him news of her journey, and 
most certainly he never expected the news he would receive. 

The letter itself will show better than anything else the 
state of mind of Charlotte Corday. Her ideas of morality 
were those of a heathen. She believed herself to have acted 
like Brutus, and to deserve the same recognition. 

" From my cell in the prison of the Abbaye, the same 
once occupied by Brissot ; the second day of preparation 
for peace. 

" You wished, citizen, to receive some account of my jour- 
ney. I shall not spare you the smallest details. I travelled 
with some rough fellows, men of the Mountain, whom I suf- 
fered to talk without interruption, and what they said being 
as absurd as they themselves were disagreeable, I dropped 
off to sleep. I only really awoke when we reached Paris. 
One of our travellers, who apparently had a fancy for girls 
who were asleep, took me to be the daughter of one of his 
friends, attributed to me a fortune that I have not, and called 
me by a name I had never heard. He ended by offering me 
his fortune and his hand. When I got tired of his wooing, 
I said : ' You have entirely mistaken me. We are acting a 
play, and it 's a pity there are no spectators. I will wake up 
our travelling companions and let them share the fun.' This 



MARA T. 265 

made him very cross. At night he sang me love-songs, which 
helped to send me to sleep. I parted from him at last at 
Paris, refusing to give him ray address or that of my father, 
which he asked of me. He left me much annoyed. I knew 
that people here might interrogate my fellow-travellers, and 
I did not wish to know any of them enough to make things 
in that case disagreeable for them, I followed the advice of 
uncle Raynal, who says that truth is not due to tyrants. It 
was through another woman who travelled with me that the 
police here have found out that I know you, and then they 
discovered I had spoken to Duperret. You know Duper- 
ret's constancy ; he told them the exact truth. My depo- 
sition confirmed his. They have nothing against him, but 
his firmness is a crime. I feared, I own, that they might dis- 
cover I had seen him. I was sorry I had done so, but it 
was too late. I wanted to repair my error by begging him 
to go at once to join you ; but he would not, being decided 
to remain in Paris. Sure of his innocence and of that of 
everybody else, I set about to execute my project. Would 
you beheve it ? Fauchet is in prison as my accomplice ; 
he had never even heard of me. But they are not satisfied 
with only a woman of no importance to sacrifice to the 
manes of their great man. 

" Pardon me, partakers of human nature ! — to call him 
a man dishonors your species. He was a wild beast, about 
to destroy France utterly by kindling civil war. Now may 
Frenchmen live in peace. Thank Heaven, he was not born 
in France ! 

" Four members of the Committee were at my first ex- 
amination. Chabot looked hke a madman, Legendre wished 
to pretend he had seen me in the morning at his house, — 
me ! who never even dreamed of seeing the man • it was 
not my mission to punish every one of them. All those who 
saw me for the first time wanted to make out that they had 
long known me. I think what they call Marat's last words 
have been printed ; I do not think he said any, but these 
are the last he spoke to me. After having written down 
your name and those of the administrateurs of Calvados, 



266 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

who are at Evreux, he said, for my satisfaction, I suppose, 
that in a few days he would have you all guillotined in Paris. 
These words decided his fate. If the Department puts his 
portrait opposite to that of St. Fargeau, they had better 
inscribe these words under it in letters of gold. 

" I will give you no account of the great event. The 
newspapers will tell you all about it. I own that what finally 
decided me to do the deed was the sight of the courage with 
which our volunteers came forward on Sunday, the yth of 
July. You will remember how they delighted me, and I 
resolved to make Potion repent of the doubt he then seemed 
to entertain as to my feelings. ' Would you be sorry if they 
did not march ? ' he said. And then I reflected that so 
many men marching to get the head of one man might very 
probably miss him, and at any rate the lives of many good 
citizens would be sacrificed in the attempt. When I left 
Caen it was my intention to sacrifice him as he sat on the 
summit of the Mountain ; but he was not attending the 
Convention. I wish I had kept your letter, it would have 
clearly shown that I had no accomplices. However, that will 
be proved in due time. We are such good republicans here 
in Paris that no one can conceive how one useless woman, 
whose longer life might have been litde good, should have 
deliberately been willing to sacrifice herself to save her 
country. I thought they would have killed me on the spot. 
But some brave men — men really worthy of all praise — pre- 
served me from the fury — a fury certainly excusable — 
of those whom I had bereaved and made unhappy. Though 
I had plenty of courage, the screams of those women made 
me suffer. But when one hopes to save one's country, one 
must not count what it costs. May peace be established 
soon, according to my hopes ! What I have done is its 
preliminary. It would never have come while he lived. 

" I have deliciously enjoyed complete peace the last two 
days. The happiness of my country makes my happiness. 
There is no act of self-sacrifice that does not produce more 
satisfaction than it costs suffering to decide upon it. I can- 
not doubt that they will in some way persecute my father, 



MARAT. 267 

who will have sorrow enough in losing me. If my letters 
are found, they will be full of pictures of you. If you find 
any little jokes made about you, forgive me for them. I 
could not help being a little merry ; it is my character. 
In my last letter to my father I made him think that, dread- 
ing the horrors of war, I was going to England. My idea 
at that time was to keep my incognito, to kill Marat in 
public, to be killed on the spot, and to leave the Parisians 
to discover my name, — which they could not have done. 
I beg you, citizen, you and your colleagues, to do your best 
to defend my friends and relations if they are molested. I 
say nothing to my dear friends who are aristocrats ; I hold 
their remembrance in my heart. I have never hated any 
human being save one. I have proved how much I hated 
him ; but there are a thousand whom I love more than he 
was hated. An active imagination and a feeling heart 
would probably have made my life a stormy one. I beg 
those who may regret me to remember this, and they will 
be glad to think of my repose in the Elysian Fields, with 
Brutus and other ancient heroes. Among the moderns there 
are few real patriots ; few who are really ready to die for 
their country. Care for self prevails. What sad material 
for the formation of a republic ! But first we must secure 
peace, and good government will come afterwards, provided 
the Mountain does not get the upper hand. At least, I 
think so. I am very comfortable in my prison. My jailers 
are kind men ; they have given me some gendarmes to keep 
me company. I like that well enough during the day, but 
not at night. I complained of it as indecent, but the Com- 
mittee has not thought proper to pay any attention to my 
complaint. That is the doing of Chabot. None but an 
ex-Capuchin could have thought of such a thing. I pass my 
time writing songs. I have given the last verse of that one 
of Valady's to some one who wanted it. I tell all the Pari- 
sians that we only take up arms against Anarchy. Which 
is the exact truth." . . . 

Here the letter breaks off. The trial of Charlotte was 
pushed on rapidly, and on the morning of July 16 an order 



268 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

from the Revolutionary Tribunal transferred her from the 
Abbaye to the Conciergerie. The decree was at once 
executed. The President of the Tribunal proceeded to 
examine her. The great wish of her judges was to prove 
she had accomplices, to unearth a plot. To this end a 
series of questions was put to her, all of which she answered 
simply and clearly, with invariable frankness. 

When they asked her why she had come to Paris, she 
answered, — 

" I only came to kill Marat." 

" What motives made you determine on so horrible an 
action ? " 

" His crimes." 

" What crimes do you accuse him of? " 

" The desolation of France and the civil war he was 
about to ignite in all parts of the country." 

" On what do you found such an imputation? " 

" His crimes in the past were the indication of his crimes 
in the future. He instigated the massacres in last Septem- 
ber ; he kept up the fires of civil war, that he might be 
named dictator ; he assailed the authority of the people by 
causing deputies to the Convention to be arrested on the 
31st of May last — " 

" When you struck him did you mean to kill him ? " 

" I certainly did." 

" So atrocious an action could not have been committed 
by a woman of your age unless it had been suggested by 
some one." 

" I told no one what I thought of doing. I did not feel 
I was going to kill a man, but a wild beast who was devour- 
ing Frenchmen." 

The president, Montane, then questioned her as to her 
relations with Barbaroux, Duperret, and others. He told her 
that no one would believe she could have committed such a 
crime unless some one had instigated it. 

"You must know little of the human heart," she said. 
" It is easier to execute such a project prompted by one's 
own hatred than by that of others." 



MARA T. 269 

Finally, the president asked her if she had counsel. 

She said she would call on Citizen Doulcet de Pont^coulant, 
a deputy from Caen, to defend her. 

She was then taken to the Conciergerie. She was to be 
re-examined the next day. She spent her time in finishing 
her letter to Barbaroux. 

" I have been transferred to the Conciergerie, and the 
gentlemen of the grand jury have promised to forward you 
this letter, so I go on with it. I have undergone a long ex- 
amination ; pray get it if it is published. I had written an 
address, which was found upon me on my arrest, to ' The 
Friends of Peace.' I cannot send it you. I shall beg them 
to publish it, but probably I shall ask in vain. Last night 1 
had a fancy to present my portrait to the Department of 
Calvados ; but the Committee of Public Safety, from whom 
I asked permission to have it painted, has given me no 
answer. Now it is too late. I beg you, citizen, to show 
this letter to Citizen Bougon, procureur general syndic of 
the Department. I do not write to him for several reasons. 
First, because I am not sure he is now at Evreux ; secondly, 
because, being tender-hearted, he may be made sorry by my 
death. I think, however, that, being a good citizen, the 
hope of peace in France will bring him consolation. I 
know how much he desires it, and in doing my best to bring 
it to pass I have fulfilled his wishes. If any of my friends 
ask to see this letter, refuse it to no one. 

" I must have a lawyer for my counsel ; it is the custom. 
I have chosen mine from the Mountain ; I chose Gustave 
Doulcet. I fancy he will refuse the honor : it would not, 
however, entail much labor. I had thought of asking for 
Robespierre or Chabot. I shall ask leave to dispose of the 
remainder of my money, and I should like it to be given to 
the wives and children of those brave men of Caen who 
have started for the relief of Paris. 

" I was surprised that the populace let them take me from 
the Abbaye to the Conciergerie. It is a fresh proof of the 
moderation of the people. Tell this to our good fellow- 
townsmen at Caen ; they sometimes break out into little 
insurrections which are not so easily controlled. 



270 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

" To-morrow at eight o'clock my final trial takes place ; 
probably by midday I ' shall have lived,' as the Romans 
said. The inhabitants of Calvados ought to be thought 
highly of if their women show that they are capable of 
courage. But I do not know how it will be at the last ; 
and it is the end that entitles work to a crown. I have 
no occasion to affect indifference to my fate, for up to this 
moment I have not felt the smallest fear of death ; I only 
value life for its power to be useful. I hope to-morrow 
Duperret and Fauchet will be set at liberty. It is said that 
the latter took me to the Convention, to the reserved seats 
in the gallery. What business would he have had to take 
a woman there ? As a deputy he had no business to be in 
the reserved seats, and as a bishop he ought not to have 
been escorting women, — so this is a little punishment for 
him ; but Duperret has nothing to reproach himself with. 

" Marat is not to be buried in the Pantheon, though he 
well deserved it. I beg you to make a collection of all 
documents appropriate to compose his funeral oration. I 
hope you will not give up the cause of Madame Forbin. 
Here is her address, if you wish to write to her : Alexandrine 
Forbin, at Mendresie, near Zurich, Switzerland. Pray tell 
her that I loved her with all my heart. I will now write a 
few lines to papa. I send nothing to my other friends : they 
had better forget me ; any sorrow for my death would dis- 
honor my memory. Tell General Wimpffen that I think I 
have helped him to gain more than a battle would have 
done, by facilitating peace. Adieu, citizen. May all who 
love peace think of me. 

" The prisoners in the Conciergerie, far from insulting 
me, like the people in the streets, seemed to pity me^; 
misfortune makes the heart more compassionate. This is 
my last reflection. 

" July 16, 8 P.M. CORDAY. 

" To Citizen Barbaroux, deputy to the National Convention, a refugee 
at Caen, Rue des Cannes, Hdtel de V Intendajtce." 

She then wrote to her father, M. de Corday d'Armont, 
Rue de Begle, Argenton. 



MARAT. 271 

Forgive me, dear papa, for having disposed of my own life 
without your permission. I have avenged many innocent vic- 
tims ; I have prevented many evils ; the people, when they see 
things in their true light, will some day rejoice that they were 
delivered from a tyrant. When I tried to persuade you I was 
going to England, I hoped to keep my incognito ; but I found 
it impossible. I hope you will not be molested; should you be 
so, however, I know you will find defenders at Caen. I have 
chosen Gustave Doulcet for my counsel, but such a deed has 
no defense ; I take a lawyer only for form's sake. Adieu, dear 
papa. I beg you to forget me, or rather to rejoice at my fate ; 
the cause in which I suffer is noble. I send kisses to my sister, 
whom I love with all my heart, as I do all my relations. Do 
not forget this line from Corneille : — 

" Le crime fait la honte, at non pas I'echafaud." 
My trial is to-morrow at eight o'clock. 

July 16. CoRDAY. 

The next day, Wednesday, July 1 7, at eight o'clock in the 
morning, Charlotte was taken before the Revolutionary Tri- 
bunal. Montane presided, assisted by three other judges. 
Fouquier-Tinville, prosecuting attorney, was in his place. 

The twelve jurymen took their^places facing the prisoner. 
Their names are obscure, except that of Leroy, ex-Marquis 
of Montflabert, who changed his royalist name for the 
appellation of Dix-Aout (loth of August). 

After the usual questions the judge asked if she had 
counsel. 

"I chose a friend," she said, "but I have seen nothing 
of him. Apparently he had not the courage to undertake 
my defense." 

The truth was Gustave Doulcet had not received Char- 
lotte's note, and did not know of her request till some days 
later. 

The judge then named for her counsel Chauveau-Lagarde, 
with Genier for his junior. 

Witnesses were called. The grief of Simone Evrard 
affected Charlotte. "I killed him," she cried, hoping by 
this confession to put an end to a painful scene. 



2/2 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

She denied nothing. She stoutly affirmed that she alone 
had planned the crime ; that she was a republican, and had 
been driven to the deed by her love for France and the 
Republic. She was asked if she thought she had killed all 
the Marats. " No," she answered ; " but the rest will be 
filled with fear." 

While she steadily answered all questions, she was quite alive 
to what went on around her. She observed that a spectator 
was sketching her ; and having failed to receive any favorable 
reply from the Committee of Public Safety as to her portrait, 
she turned her head so that he could get a good view of 
her. 

They showed her the knife with which she stabbed her 
victim. She turned away her eyes and said hurriedly, " I 
recognize it ; I know it." Fouquier-Tinville then spoke : 
" You must be very familiar with crime." She gave a sharp 
cry and said, " Oh, the monster ! Does he take me for a 
common murderess?" 

Her letter to Barbaroux was read, and its reading seemed 
to gratify her. Her allusion to Chabot, the ex-Capuchin, 
made her laugh. Fouquier-Tinville's speech was more mod- 
erate than his wont. The facts spoke for themselves ; there 
was really nothing to be said either by the defense or the 
prosecution. 

Her counsel Chauveau-Lagarde described in after days 
the emotion with which all the proceedings of that day had 
filled him. He made what defense he could, appealing to 
the jury on the ground that the murder was an act of politi- 
cal fanaticism. " As I spoke," he said afterwards, " a look 
of satisfaction illuminated her face." 

When the verdict was given and sentence of death pro- 
nounced, she turned to Chauveau-Lagarde and said : " Mon- 
sieur, I thank you for the courage with which you have 
defended me in a manner worthy of me and of yourself 
My money has been confiscated by these gentlemen, but I 
wish to give you a still greater testimony of my gratitude. 
I beg you to pay for me what I owe in the prison, and I 
count on your generosity." 



MARAT. 273 

Chauveau-Lagarde accepted this singular legacy, and paid 
the debt, which amounted to thirty-six francs. 

"I had hoped that we should have breakfasted together," 
said Charlotte to Richard, the concierge of the Conciergerie, 
and his wife, "but the judges kept me so long yonder I had 
to break my promise." 

She refused the religious services offered her by Abbe 
Lothringer, a Constitutional priest. 

" Thank those," she said, " who sent you, for their atten- 
tion ; I am much obliged to them, but I do not need your 
ministry." 

The last hours of her life were employed by her in what 
she had more at heart. The young painter Huer, who had 
begun to take her picture during the trial, was admitted to 
finish it in the prison. The picture is now in the Gallery at 
Versailles. 

In general, there was little interval between sentence and 
execution, but this time the latter was retarded by a dispute 
between the chief judge and Fouquier-Tinville about certain 
words in the indictment, which so excited the public prose- 
cutor that he forgot to sign the order for the execution, 
and it was not till some hours after, when he found Sanson 
standing at his office-door waiting for it, that he remem- 
bered the omission. 

" Quoif DejaV said Charlotte, as the executioner en- 
tered. She tore a fly-leaf from a book, and wrote a few 
lines expressing her resentment and contempt for the man 
who she (unjustly) thought had declined to be her counsel. 

She herself cut off two locks of her beautiful hair. One 
she gave to the painter, the other to Richard, for his wife. 
Then she gave herself into the hands of the executioner. 

She was clothed in the red smock always given to mur- 
derers. The cart waited before the door of the Concier- 
gerie ; a fierce crowd surrounded it. When Chadotte ap- 
peared there was a loud volley of shouts and execrations, 
whilst a thunder-storm burst over the city, and thunder and 
lightning filled the air. 

The rain, the flashes of lightning, and the claps of thun- 
18 



274 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



der had no effect on the curiosity of the crowd. So great 
was the mob that the cart could only move very slowly. 
Charlotte stood up, though Sanson offered her a chair. 
She wished calmly to look on at the explosion of hatred 
which was bursting all around her. 

At the same time there were not wanting marks of sym- 
pathy, — nay, even, of admiration. Some people had for- 
gotten her crime and thought only of her rare courage and 
serenity. Among these unknown friends was one man in 
particular. He was a young deputy from Mayenne, Adam 
Lux by name, whom the Revolution had excited to enthu- 
siasm, and the Convention had welcomed into its body. 

Adam Lux drew close to the cart and testified his pas- 
sionate admiration for the victim with unparalleled warmth 
and demonstration. He proclaimed her to be " more noble 
than Brutus," and he wished he were about to die with her. 
He did, indeed, die subsequently as she had died, — by 
the guillotine. 

Three other spectators wished to gaze on the young 
heroine, but they stood at a window in the Rue St. Honore. 
They were Robespierre, Danton, and Camille Desmoulins. 
What reflections would have crowded on their minds as they 
looked down upon her in the cart, could the veil that hid 
their own fate been withdrawn ! 

Slowly the tumbril made its way onward. It was two 
hours since it had quitted the Conciergerie. 

"You must find the time long," said Sanson to his 
prisoner. 

" Bah ! " she answered, " we are sure to get there at last." 

When they turned on to the Place de la Revolution San- 
son tried to place himself so that she would not see the 
guillotine, but she stooped and leaned forward. '' I have a 
right," she said, " to be curious. It is the first time I have 
ever seen one." 

Still_, notwithstanding her courage, the sight made her 
grow pale. She recovered herself, however, almost imme- 
diately. She stepped down from the cart and mounted the 
scaffold. Then she bowed to the crowd, and some thought 



MARAT. 275 

she was about to address them with a few words. She was 
drawn back, however. One of the executioners pulled off 
the whiiQjichu which covered her neck and breast. A faint 
blush colored her cheeks. Then she lay down on the plank ; 
the knife fell; her head dropped into the basket. One 
of Sanson's assistants, Legros, seized it, held it up to the 
people, and slapped the face. Tradition says her cheeks 
blushed at the outrage. 

With thunder and lightning, and occasional gleams of a 
summer sun breaking through the clouds, the execution took 
place. The body was at once removed to the graveyard 
of the Madeleine, and buried without further ceremony. 
In 1804 a cross was placed over her grave, but in 
18 15 her remains were finally interred in the cemetery of 
Montparnasse. 

Never did any citizen receive such honors after death 
as did Marat. We say nothing of his funeral orations, in 
which the terms in which he was praised werei)lasphemous. 
His heart was placed in a vase of agate, found among the 
treasures of the Garde Meuble. A monument was erected 
to him on what is now the Place du Carrousel, and it was 
inaugurated a month after his death. 

David fulfilled his promise, and painted Marat in his bath- 
tub. His bust — that of VAmi du Peuple — was paraded 
through the Sections.^ More than thirty cities or villages 
asked the honor of taking his name ; chief among these was 
Havre, which became Havre- Marat. Children were called 
Marat as their "given name." His picture was hung up in 
the schools, and rings, brooches, watches, and cravat pins 
had his portrait. Various dramas were put upon the stage 
concerning his death and his apotheosis, — for example, 
" Marat dans I'Olympe," a comedy with songs ; " L'Arrivee 
de Marat aux Champs Elysees," etc. Verses and ballads 
concerning him were sold in all the streets. 

On Nov. 19, 1793, the Convention decreed Marat the 
honors of the Pantheon. This was a month after the exe- 

1 As we have seen in Mr. Griffith's reminiscences. — E. W. L. 



2/6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

cution of the queen. On Sept. 21, 1794, the ceremony 
took place with extraordinary splendor. 

But even then the popular devotion to VAmi du Peuple 
was on the decline. A few months later the Convention, 
though it did not dare to reverse its vote, decreed that the 
honors of the Pantheon should be given to no citizen till 
he had been dead ten years (Feb. 8, 1795)- 

This was the prelude to the unpantheonization of Marat. 
In January they had begun to pull down his monument. 
On February 26, his remains were turned out of the Pantheon 
and placed in a neighboring graveyard. 

Ever since that time his name has been a mark for exe- 
cration, and his own blood shed by Charlotte Corday has not 
effaced the stain upon his memory made by the torrents of 
blood which he shed. 



CHAPTER II. 

DANTON. 

HEBERT and his fellow-atheists, who said in their hearts 
there was no God, and yet inconsistently took pleas- 
ure in provoking Him to anger and insulting Him, were sent 
to the guillotine on March 7, 1794. The Hebertists were 
the new Cordeliers. The old Cordeliers were followers of 
Danton. There was great confusion both in the club of 
the Cordeliers, and in that of the Jacobins. The condem- 
nation of Hubert led to clamors against Pitt. If the Revolu- 
tion had been instigated to excesses which compromised it in 
the eyes of other nations, who could have been the instigator 
of such excesses but Pitt? The Jacobins suspected some of 
their own members of being concerned in a conspiracy to 
bring the Revolution into disrepute, and determined to purge 
themselves. Camille Desmoulins had given them offense, 
and there rose murmurs against Danton himself, " though he 
bellowed them down, and Robespierre embraced him in the 
Tribune." In those days too there was unearthed a financial 
scandal, in which Philippeaux, a representative, Fabre 
d'Eglantine, Chabot, and Bazire were implicated. Philip- 
peaux's real offense was that on his return to Paris after a 
mission to La Vendee, he brought back an ill report of Gen- 
eral Rossignol, who was a stanch adherent of Robespierre. 
He made a similar charge against Westermann, who had led 
the Marseillais to Paris, and who had also been sent into La 
Vendee. 

Danton had grown weary of turmoil and confusion. He 
had gone down with his young wife to Arcis-sur-Aube, his 
birthplace, the scene of his boyhood. After the proscription 
of the Girondists he had been urged to escape, to hide him- 



2/8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

self, to seek an asylum in some foreign land. He replied, 
" If free France casts me out, there are only dungeons for 
me elsewhere. Does a man carry away his country on the 
soles of his shoes?" 

On the purgation of the Jacobin Club each member was 
asked by Saint-Just : " What deed have you done for which, 
in case of a counter-revolution, you would be guillotined?" 
Camille Desmoulins had assuredly done many such deeds ; 
had given many pledges of good faith to the Revolution. 
He was, however, cast out by the Jacobins, and soon after 
sent to prison by the Committee of Public Safety. Danton had 
ceased to be a member of that committee. Three months 
after its establishment he had proposed that all power should 
be given to it, and a sum of fifty millions of money. The 
power it assumed ; the money was not voted ; and Danton 
from that day forth would have nothing to do with the com- 
mittee, though it repeatedly solicited him to return. It was 
a body in which the members held brief terms of office, 
but they re-elected themselves when those terms expired. 
The Committee of General Security was to it a sort of. 
sub-committee. 

After the arrest of Camille Desmoulins, things became so 
threatening that Danton's friends urged him vehemently to 
leave Arcis and return to Paris. Dreading the result of 
the impending struggle between Danton and Robespierre, 
some friends of the former brought about a meeting between 
the rivals, but this meeting did but inflame the hatred and 
jealousy they were so anxious to appease. " It is right,"' 
said Danton to Robespierre, " to repress Royalists ; but we 
should not strike except where it is useful to the Repubhc ; 
we should not confound the innocent with the guilty." 

"And who says," cried Robespierre, "that even one 
person who was innocent has perished?" 

On hearing of the result of this interview, Danton's 
friends again urged him to escape, and so avoid his prob- 
able arrest. 

" They dare not arrest me ! " cried Danton, proudly, and 
would take no measures to insure his safety. 




D ANTON, 



DANTON. 



279 



But on the morrow news spread over Paris that Dan- 
ton, Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, and Lacroix were 
prisoners. 

On the 13 Germinal, An II. (April 2, 1794), the trial 
of Danton for conspiracy against the Republic, and that of 
his accomplices (so called), took place. ^ Excitement ran 
high in Paris, and crowds surrounded the Palais de Justice. 
The accused were Jacques Paul Danton, Camille Desmoulins, 
Herault de Sechelles, Philippeaux, and Lacroix, — all mem- 
bers of the Convention, all leaders in the Revolution. Their 
accusers were their colleagues, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and 
Couthon, — the same who a few months before had brought 
the Girondists to trial. 

Every precaution had been taken to secure conviction. 
Herman, the judge who presided, could be rehed on to in- 
terrupt and impede the defense of the accused, or, if neces- 
sary, to suppress it entirely. Four other judges sat with him 
on the bench, all creatures of Robespierre. Fouquier- 
Tinville was the public prosecutor, and the jury was com- 
posed of what in the language of the times were called des 
homines solides ; that is, men whose opinion could be relied 
upon beforehand. 

As a further precaution, Danton's case was united to that 
of men arraigned for a financial scandal in connection with 
the Compagnie des Indes, several of whom there is no rea- 
son to doubt were dishonest stock-jobbers. It made Danton 
indignant to be placed in the dock beside men of this char- 
acter, of whom there were eight, all being accused as his 
accompHces, and he as theirs. 

Danton, Camille, Phihppeaux, and Lacroix had been 
arrested in the last night of March, 1794, and carried to the 
Luxembourg. Danton, when warned of what was coming, 
had replied with supreme disdain, " A man who sleeps at 
home every night with his wife is never a conspirator." 

The vigorous action of the two committees took him by 

1 From an article in the " Supplement Litteraire du Figaro," 
April 7, 1894. 



28o THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

surprise. '' He seemed," said one who witnessed his arrest, 
'• rather ashamed of having been duped by Robespierre." 

His arrival at the Luxembourg made a great sensation 
among the prisoners. 

" On tlais very day of the month," he said, " I proposed 
the estabhshment of the Revolutionary Tribunal ; now for 
that act I ask pardon of God and of niy fellow-men. I never 
meant that it should be the scourge of humanity ; I intended 
that by legal process it should prevent such massacres as 
took place in September." 

Then, turning to the prisoners, who all gazed at him with 
astonishment, amazed to find him one of themselves, he 
said, " Gentlemen, it was my hope that I might soon effect 
your deliverance ; but, unfortunately, here I am a prisoner 
among you. I do not know what will be the end." 

He was confined in a dungeon next to that of Lacroix, 
with whom he conversed in a loud voice, being glad to let 
the other prisoners hear his opinions and reflections, which 
through some of them might be transmitted to posterity. 

Some of his remarks have been thus preserved : — 

"I leave everything in France in deplorable confusion. 
There is not a man among her rulers who knows anything 
of statecraft." 

" What proves the Sieur de Robespierre to be a Nero is, 
that he never spoke with more affection to Camille Des- 
mouhns than just before his arrest." ^ 

" In times of revolution, authority falls into the hands of 
rascals." 

Once he said, " If I could give my manhness to Robes- 
pierre and my legs to Couthon, the Committee of Public 
Safety might yet last for a while." 

Then, thinking of his little house at Arcis-sur-Aube, where 
his young wife was awaiting his return, he began to speak of 
its rural beauty, of its trees, of its repose. " Better," he 
cried, "to be a poor fisherman than a man who tries to 
govern men." 

1 Robespierre had been best man, not long before, at Camille 
Desmoulins's marriage. 



dan-ton: 281 

That evening the prisoners, after examination, were sent 
to the Conciergerie. The next day, the 13th Germinal 
(April 2), came the trial. 

At two in the morning the accused were brought before 
the Revolutionary Tribunal. The first place, that of the 
criminal of most importance, was not accorded to Danton, 
but to the ex-Capuchin and swindler Chabot; then came 
Bazire, and then Fabre d'Eglantine.^ The design was to 
dishonor Danton by trying him in the company of men 
accused of dishonorable ways of making money. But 
though he entered fifth among the prisoners, all eyes were 
fixed on him. There he stood, the man of the Tenth of 
August, of the massacres of September, the founder of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal before which he was now arraigned. 
Of Herculean strength and of colossal frame, "he sat on the 
banc des accuses^'' as an eye-witness expressed it, " as the 
gentleman of sans-adotterie''' His face was deeply pitted by 
the small-pox, his ^nose was snub, his nostrils in the air, his 
lips prominent, ai/.i his small eyes darted around him keen 
glances of scrutiny and of disdain. He believed himself 
about to crush the accusation by his vehement oratory, as he 
had so often crushed his enemies in the Convention. 

Two men, one of them the handsome He'rault de Sechelles, 
separated him from CamilJe Desmoulins. The jury were 
then sworn. Camille Desmoulins objected to one of them, 
with whom he had once had a personal quarrel ; but this 
objection was set aside. 

Danton was asked the usual questions. He answered, — 

" My residence ? I shall soon be nothing ; afterwards I 
shall be in the Pantheon of history. Whichever it may be, 
I little care." 



1 Fabre d'Eglantine, who is known to posterity by a name "which," 
says one of his admirers, " is a poem in itself," was really Philippe 
Fabre {Anglice, Philip Smith, or Philip a worker in metals). The 
d'Eglantine was assumed because he had gained the Eglantine prize 
in a literary competition in Provence, — one of those societies which 
Macaulay says " turned those who might have been thriving attorneys 
and useful apothecaries into small wits and bad poets." 



282 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The trial (not of Danton and his friends, but of the rest) 
proceeded. The next day Westermann was brought in and 
placed among the prisoners ; he was the personal friend of 
Danton, and that outweighed all his services in the cause 
of the Revolution. 

I'he report of Saint-Just to the Convention, accusing 
Danton, was then read ; he was denounced as '' a partisan 
of royalty." At length Danton was called upon for his 
defence. 

" Danton," said the presiding officer of the Tribunal, "the 
Convention accuses you of having favored Dumouriez : of 
not having made known what manner of man he was ; of 
having taken part in his projects of liberticide — " 

Then Danton broke forth with indignation and vehemence. 
The judge interrupted him. " Danton," he said, " such 
audacity is the accompaniment of crime ; the innocent are 
calm. No doubt you have the right to speak in your own 
defense, but you must restrict what you say within the bounds 
of moderation." 

" No ! " answered Danton, " audacity in self-defense may 
be wrong, but audacity on behalf of the nation, of which 
I have shown many proofs, is right and lawful." And in 
the same strain of indignant eloquence he continued his 
defense, protesting that all men knew that he had been the 
true friend of the people, the most ardent defender of 
liberty. '' As I look over this list of lies," he cried, " this list 
of horrid accusations brought against me, I shudder through 
all my bodily frame ! " 

Here Herman again interrupted him, saying that he was 
wanting in proper respect to the Convention, the Tribunal, 
and the Sovereign People. " Marat," he added, "was accused 
like you, and was acquitted. He defended himself with re- 
spectful words. I cannot point out to you a better example." 

At this Danton lost command over himself. He flamed 
with anger. " I ! — Do you say that I sold myself to Mira- 
beau, to Orleans, to Dumouriez? That I was the partisan of 
royalists and royalty? Bring proofs. Bring hither those 
who accuse me, and I will trample them into dust. Vile 



D ANTON. 283 

impostors, stand forth ; let me p]uck away the mask which 
hides you from public vengeance ! " 

Again he was interrupted by the court, and went on more 
calmly, " I have things to reveal ; I demand to be heard in 
silence. The safety of the country may depend on what 
I say." 

This was too much. Herman had no intention of letting 
him proceed on this line of defense. He rang his bell vio- 
lently. " A man speaking to defend his hfe cares nothing 
for your ringing," cried Danton, and continued. 

The jury then proceeded to interrupt him by all kinds of 
questions. To speak with his accustomed eloquence was 
impossible. While Dan ton was thus being harassed by 
the jury, Herman and Fouquier were exchanging scraps of 
paper. These scraps were afterwards found among the 
documents of the trial. 

" In half an hour I shall put a stop to Danton's speaking," 
wrote Herman to the prosecutor. 

" I have some questions to ask the court concerning 
affairs in Belgium ! " cried the accused. 

" They are not now in order," was the reply. " We must 
get on faster." 

And get on they did. Here is the newspaper report of the 
proceedings. " Dan ton spoke for some time with the energy 
and vehemence he has so often displayed in the Convention. 
... As he reviewed the accusations personal to himself, he 
had great difficulty in suppressing his passion. His voice 
grew hoarse. It was evident that he needed rest. Seeing 
this, his judges proposed to him to suspend his review of 
the accusations brought against him, that he might answer 
them with more calmness and effect. Danton accepted the 
suggestion." 

Danton being thus silenced, the trial of his friends 
proceeded. 

He'rault de Se'chelles defended himself with energy, Ca- 
mille Desmoulins with less spirit. Lacroix, when interrupted 
by Herman, cried, " Is this trial only a farce, that I am not 
allowed liberty of speech ? " 



284 ^-^^ FRENCH revolution: 

Fouquier here interposed, " It is time to put an end to 
all this. I shall write to the Convention and ask for orders. 
They will be followed exactly." 

Philippeaux, who was about to enter on his defense, here 
said, " You may condemn me to death, — I submit. But I 
forbid you to insult me." 

The next day another prisoner, Lhuillier, ex-procureur 
general, was arrested and brought in. 

Westermann, when his turn came, said, " I have received 
seven wounds, all of them in front. The only one I ever 
had in the back is this acte (P accusation.^'' 

The men tried for dishonorable money dealings were not 
interrupted in their defense, which could not injure men in 
power. 

Danton and his friends eagerly demanded that the court 
should hear their witnesses. Herman, who had no intention 
that they should be heard, was anxiously expecting an order 
to that effect from the Convention. At last, at four o'clock, 
he was called out. He found two members of the Com- 
mittee of General Safety awaiting him. " Here is what you 
asked for," said one of them, presenting a paper. " Now 
you can go on quite at your ease," said the other. •'! can 
tell you we had need of this," answered Herman, with 
a laugh. He returned to the court, and with an air of 
great satisfaction read a decree, by which " any one accused 
of conspiracy who shall resist or insult judges appointed by 
the nation, shall be at once stopped and shall not be allowed 
to speak further." 

On the reading of this document a great tumult ensued, 
and in the midst of the confusion the court was adjourned. 

The next day, the i6th Germinal, Herman refused to allow 
Danton and his friends to bring forward their witnesses. 
Danton and Lacroix protested. The judge answered that it 
was useless, for he had more numerous witnesses at hand 
who could contradict their testimony ; he had not summoned 
them, he said, because he wished strictly to obey the orders 
of the Convention ; and when Danton and Lacroix insisted, 
he pointed out that a decree of the convention permitted 



D ANTON. 285 

a jury after three days to cut short a trial, if they declared 
themselves satisfied. 

The trial being thus stopped, and the accused taken back 
to prison, Herman and Fouquier went into the jury-room 
and told the jury that they must now end the trial by declar- 
ing themselves satisfied. The jury obeyed. 

They returned to the court-room. Each juror was asked 
the usual question, only on this occasion the question as- 
sumed the form of an announcement, as thus : — 

" There has existed a conspiracy intended to restore mon- 
archy in France, to destroy the national representation and 
the republican form of government. Citizen-juror, is Lacroix 
guilty of having taken part in this conspiracy?" And so on 
for Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, H^rault de 
Sechelles, and Westermann. 

For the others the formula was different : " There has 
existed a conspiracy tending to defame and dishonor the 
national representation, and to destroy republican govern- 
ment by corruption." 

All were pronounced guilty, except Lhuillier. 

Public interest was now concentrated on Danton and his 
friends. Herault de Sechelles, who had said, when their 
defense was stopped, " These proceedings do not surprise 
me. They are worthy of those who are thirsting for our 
blood," received his sentence with the words, " What I 
expected ! " 

Poor Camille Desmouhns, who had been employing his 
solitary hours in prison by writing a long and piteous letter 
to his wife, could not receive sentence of death with equal 
calmness. " Oh, the monsters ! the villains ! " he cried, 
" and to think that I should have been the dupe of Robes- 



pierre 



I" 



" My friend," said Herault, " let us show them how to 
die." 

Philippeaux had one moment of weakness, but he soon 
recovered himself. Lacroix and Westermann were calm and 
said nothing. As to Danton, he did not bemoan himself 
like Camille Desmoulins, but he could not restrain his feel- 



286 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

ings. He foamed with rage. He uttered the most dread- 
ful curses agamst his murderers. His words came so fast 
that they were hardly intelligible. A few were afterwards 
remembered by those who heard them : — 

" I have at least the consolation of believing that the 
man who dies as chief of the fadmi des vidulgents will be 
pardoned by posterity." 

" What matters my death ? I have gloried in the Revo- 
lution ; I have spent much ; I have had many a revel in 
my day. Now we '11 go to sleep." 

The carts were waiting in the courtyard of the Concier- 
gerie. The condemned were at once placed in them. 
Danton had recovered his self-possession, and even his 
gayety. He tried to console Philippeaux, who was utterly 
cast down at the thought of his poor wife and child. He 
joked Fabre d' Eglantine, who seemed wrapped in sadness, 
and he expressed great pity for poor Camille, who tried to 
cry out to the crowd as the cart passed them : " People ! oh, 
people ! you are deceived by those who govern you ! " 

Danton endeavored to silence him, saying, " Be quiet ! 
Have nothing to say to that vile canaille ! " 

Then he asked the executioner if he might be allowed to 
sing. Sanson replied that singing was not forbidden. 

" Then try to remember some lines I have just been 
making," Danton said, and he sang, — 

" Nous sommes menes au trepas 
Par quantite de scelerats ; 

C'est ce qui nous desole. 
Mais bientot le moment viendra 
Ou chacun d'eux y passera ; 

C'est ce qui nous console." 

When they reached the Place de la Revolution the carts 
stopped. Herault de S^chelles got down first ; before 
mounting the steps of the scaffold he wanted to embrace 
Danton, but the executioner's men prevented this and 
dragged him away. 

" Wretches ! " cried Danton, " would you like to prevent 
our lips from meeting in the panier ? " 



DANTON. 287 

Camille Desmoulins continued his laments till death had 
silenced them. 

Danton, too, though he showed no lack of courage, had a 
moment of tender recollection. " Oh, my poor wife," he 
cried, " my beloved wife ! shall I never see you again ? " 

Then recovering himself, he murmured quickly, " Come, 
Danton, no weakness ! " 

He mounted the steps of the scaffold, and turning to the 
executioner said : '' Thou must show my head to the people. 
It is a sight worth seeing." 

The execution was soon over, and various were the im- 
pressions it made on the spectators. Amidst a confusion 
of shouts and cries, many asked each other and them- 
selves if this execution of men who had been republican 
leaders from the beginning was just — or even necessary. 
Already might be seen the first germs of the tendency to 
that reaction which in less than four months was to sweep 
Robespierre and his accomplices to the same scaffold. As 
Danton had said, he dragged them all down with him in his 
fall. 

Certain lines which were secretly circulated in Paris 
reflected this opinion. 

" Camille Desmoulins, D'Eglantine, and Danton 
Together reached the stream of Phlegethon. 
They paid their passage to the other side 
To Charon, honest ferryman, who cried, 
' You 've given me too much ; 't is double pay. 
Here, take your change ! ' — ' Nay,' answered Danton, ' nay ; 
We 've paid for six ; three more will soon appear : 
Couthon, Saint-Just, and — hark ye ! — Robespierre.' " 

It had been the fashion to speak of Danton as a man 
steeped in debauchery, and in truth some of his last words, 
spoken under the excitement of his sentence, tend to sup- 
port that conclusion. The truth seems to be that there 
were two men in Danton. In that age, when all was contra- 
diction, this was not uncommon. One Danton was the 
man who loved his wife with passion ; the other the Dan- 
ton, who breaking away from his home could throw off all 



288 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

restraints in the Palais Royal, and " se /aire hien caresser 
des fillesP 

When Danton first came to Paris in the early days of the 
Revolution, he met his first wife, the daughter of a lemonade- 
seller on the Pont Neuf. She was very beautiful, a tender, 
loving woman of the domestic type, and an earnest Chris- 
tian. She it was who in the early days of their marriage 
worked to support the household. She was the mother of 
two children. Danton had no success in Paris as a lawyer ; 
he pleaded but one cause, that of the nation. But those 
were happy days. Husband and wife were all in all to each 
other. Madame Danton was grave and gentle, Danton as 
vehement in his gayety as he was in his passions. She was 
so full of piety and grace that it seemed as if some rays 
from her heart lit up the atheism professed by her husband. 

When Danton left the tribune he came back to love and 
piety at home ; Marat and Robespierre found nothing in 
that asylum to call off their thoughts from their enemies. 
They carried their work of politics to their hearths, to their 
beds, nay, even, into their very bath-tubs. But the loving, 
pious nature of Madame Danton could not long stand the 
terrible strain of the Revolution. She sickened and died of 
fear and horror. After the days of September she felt that the 
ship was running on a reef and must soon go to pieces. Her 
own hopes were anchored in heaven. Perhaps she thought 
that when she reached it she might plead for Danton. 

As she grew ill her husband was in despair. He quitted 
her bedside only to do his duty in the Convention. It was 
the year '93. His impatience under sorrow added to his 
vehemence in the tribune, and perhaps to his pitilessness 
against those he held to be his country's enemies. 

Ere she died, the wise and loving woman, knowing the 
nature of her husband, spoke to him of the necessity of a 
second marriage. She even pointed out to him the young 
girl who she desired might be a mother to her children. 
But Danton vehemently rejected the idea. ''Must my 
children be motherless, then ? " said the dying woman. 
Danton watched beside her corpse till she was buried. 



DANTON. 289 

" We shall meet — shall we not — in heaven ? " were almost 
her last words. " Oh, yes, we shall meet," replied Danton, 
with a smile, but he had no belief in any hereafter. 

A week after his wife was buried he, in a savage burst of 
grief, went to her grave, and endeavored to dig her up, that 
he might once more embrace her. He fulfilled her wish 
about a second marriage. But this wife also died within the 
year, heart-stricken by so many horrors. 

Then he married a third time, though his heart was in the 
grave with his first wife, — his first love. It was with this 
newly married wife that he retired to Arcis-sur-Aube, whence 
he was summoned to Paris to meet his doom. It was of 
this poor woman he was thinking in his last moments, when 
he " strengthened up his courage to his fate " with the words, 
"Danton! no weakness," and mounted the steps of the 
scaffold. 



19 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 

nPHIS account of the Fete de VEtre Supreme is by Adolphe 
Adam, the well-known French musician and com- 
poser.i He tells the tale as it was told to him by Sarrette, 
the musical director of the period, the founder of the Paris 
Conservatoire. 

The various misfortunes endured by France in 1793 were 
surpassed by her experiences in the early months of 1794. 
The massacres of Lyons and of Nantes were not more 
horrible than those of Toulon, Orange, and Marseilles. At 
Orange (a place of small importance) and its neighborhood 
no less than fifteen thousand persons were put to death in 
two months. Cries of horror and remonstrance rose on all 
sides, and reached the ears of the Committee of Public 
Safety, which answered them by declaring itself satisfied with 
the conduct of Maignet, the commissioner who had ordered 
these horrible butcheries ; and the Convention indorsed the 
approval of the Committee. 

The name of Lyons was suppressed by a decree ; thence- 
forward it was to be called La Commune Affraiichie. But 
Marseilles fared worse : a decree of the Convention declared 
her to be a rebellious city, which should bear no name ; a 
month later, however, another decree pei-mitted her to give 
up the anonymous and be Marseilles once more. The atro- 
cious folly of such decrees was only equalled by their multi- 
plicity. One day the Convention recorded its approval of 
an order of a commissioner in the Department of Var, com- 
manding all the masons in his district to form a corps for 

1 Translated by me, and published in " Littell's Living Age," 
Aug. 23, 1879. — E. W. L. 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 29 1 

the total demolition of Toulon ; the next day it approved 
another instance of the energetic government of Maignet, 
who had burned a village a few leagues from Carpentras 
because a tree of liberty had been cut down during the 
night. The villagers all perished in the conflagration, except 
a few who were shot down by a volunteer company stationed 
to see that none escaped. Another decree forbade French 
soldiers to give quarter to any Enghshman or Hanoverian. 
It is needless to add that the various French armies gave 
no heed to this order. 

Those who read of such atrocities very probably imagine 
that Paris was a sad and silent city in those days. On the 
contrary, if despair and consternation were in every heart, 
men took great pains to conceal their feelings. Never had 
the theatres, the gambling-houses, the drinking-shops, etc., 
been better patronized. Sometimes all Paris looked like an 
enormous giiinguette. From three to five o'clock, on fete 
days, tables stood spread before the houses, to which each 
family or lodger brought his contribution. A coarse, fierce, 
dirty patriot was the guest most welcomed at these tables ; 
for every citizen who had any property left was anxious to 
give no offense to any man who might denounce him in his 
district, since a reward was paid to all informers at that 
period, and an especial decree declared the property of any 
man detained in prison to belong of right to the indigent 
patriots of his own Section. 

There were plenty of Revolutionary fetes to take the place 
of the old Catholic Church holidays, which had been solemnly 
abolished by a decree of the Convention, Nov. 10, 1793. 
The goddess of Reason had been enthroned, and the 
Cathedral of Notre Dame had been assigned to her ; whilst 
the other churches in Paris were devoted to various allegorical 
and metaphorical divinities, — as Liberty, Conjugal Affection, 
etc. On the day of the installation of the goddess at Notre 
Dame, a dancing-girl from the Opera was elevated on the 
high altar as her representative. Beside her stood Laharpe, 
the ex- Academician, the well-known author of the "Cours 
de Litterature." Holding his cap of liberty, he opened his 



292 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

address by denying the existence of a God ; and then, blas- 
pheming our divine Saviour, he dared Him to avenge the 
insult offered to Him in His temple. As no miracle took 
place in answer to this impious challenge, the crowd burst 
into loud laughter and shouts of joy. The nave of the 
church was then turned into a ball-room. The celebrated 
organist Sejan was forced to play on the great organ base 
dance-music of the period, while whirling wretches danced 
the carmagnole^ and howled the air of " Qa ira; " after which 
they broke the statues, tore the eyes out of the pictures of 
the saints, and burned everything that had ever borne a 
part in the worship of the Almighty. 

On the 2ist of January, 1794, there was a splendid y?/^ in 
the Place de la Revolution. It was the anniversary of the 
day on which fell the last of the kings. Singing and dancing 
round the guillotine celebrated the occasion, until at last, 
during a pause in the general mirth, four victims, who stood 
waiting for the signal, mounted the scaffold, and four heads 
fell under the fatal axe amidst the shouts of a populace 
which has always put forth a claim to be called " the people." 
The guillotine in those days was the favorite symbol. The 
costume in vogue was a jacket called a carmagnole, trousers 
of coarse cloth, the neck bare or tied with a red handker- 
chief, and a felt cap, with a long queue. Dandies wore 
little liberty-caps in their button-holes, little gold guillotines 
for earrings or for breastpins (if they had any shirts to put 
them in), and carried stout cudgels in their hands. At 
dinner-parties little mahogany guillotines were used as table 
ornaments, mahogany being at that time fashionable and 
rare. Women wore little gold guillotines in their ears, or 
as finger-rings, or as clasps to their girdles ; vi'hilst all the 
time the great real red guillotine continued its daily labors, 
no longer picking out its victims, but sweeping them in 
almost without inquiry. At first wealth and high birth had 
been men's title to proscription ; but after a while all kinds 
of offenses against civism had to be invented, to make the 
number of the executed greater day by day. Those guilty 
of Girondism and conservatism were not enough. Success 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 293 

in business soon became a crime, devotion to science was a 
ground for condemnation. Malesherbes perished for plead- 
ing the cause of his late master ; and when Lavoisier re- 
quested two weeks' reprieve, that he might finish the solution 
of certain problems that would be of use to science and 
humanity, Cofifinhal, the President of the Revolutionary Tri- 
bunal, answered, " The Republic has no need of science or 
of chemistry." 

Still the guillotine was not satisfied ; all the blood it had 
shed was, so to speak, of the same color. Robespierre 
found means to satisfy its new caprice ; those who had fed 
it hitherto became its victims. Rousin, Hebert, the origi- 
nator of the Pere Duchene, Anacharsis Clootz, Chaumette, 
Vincent, Danton, Chabot, Bazire, Lacroix, Camille Desmou- 
lins, and others soon followed in the steps of Malesherbes ; 
Louis XVL's advocate preceded only by a few days his 
client's judges. 

Terror was at its height. Those who still managed to 
escape the Revolutionary Tribunal, each of whose arrests 
was but a prelude to the scaffold, had hard work to keep 
themselves from want, owing to the vexatious police arrange- 
ments of this "age of liberty." No man could buy bread, 
meat, wood, candles, or soap without a permit from the 
authorities of his Section ; and then the articles could not 
be delivered to him for twenty-four hours, during which 
time the authorities were verifying his reputation for good 
citizenship and ascertaining that no denunciations had been 
lodged against him. Such universal wretchedness may in 
part account for the mad way in which men gave themselves 
up to pleasure in days when no one knew whether he should 
be alive upon the morrow. 

Nor was luxury nor a taste for speculation arrested by 
a sense of danger. New buildings went up in all quarters of 
the city, and were pushed on with an energy that showed 
how little time their owners felt that they might have to live 
in them. Costly furniture was purchased for these new 
abodes ; for the danger of being rich did not seem to affect 
the desire for riches. 



294 ^-^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

At last, indeed, Paris seemed to grow weary of blood- 
shedding, and Robespierre began to perceive that he had 
better apply himself to calm the passions of the populace, 
and to organize some reaction to the agitations and emotions 
in which Paris had lived for upwards of a year. By degrees 
he had got rid of the extremists of his own party, endeavor- 
ing to throw on them the odium of acts which they had only 
helped him to accomplish ; and in order to inaugurate a new 
era of moderation and of brotherhood, which might do him 
honor, he began by proposing to the Convention a sort of 
return to a system of worship ; but the religion which he 
favored was of a new kind. 

On his motion the Assembly decreed " that the French 
people recognizes the existence of a Supreme Being and 
the immortality of the soul." The inscription of this recog- 
nition on the dead walls of Paris did not seem an act of 
solemnity proportioned to its importance. It was resolved 
that a great festival should be held in honor of the Supreme 
Being. The Committee of Public Safety was thereupon 
ordered to organize the festival. History must not forget 
that upon that committee there were men who occupied 
themselves solely with their own especial duties ; Carnot, 
for example, who superintended the wars of the Republic, 
directing fourteen armies from his cabinet, sending plans to 
his various generals, and planning the combination of their 
forces ; while Lindet only concerned himself with the quar- 
termaster's department, Prieur with the ordnance, and 
Barrere undertook matters relating to the fine arts. 

Barrere sent at once for those who generally undertook 
the arrangement of the fetes of the Republic. The leader 
of them all was David the painter, the friend and the crea- 
ture of Robespierre, — he who the night before his patron's 
fall exclaimed, " If you drink poison I shall drink it too, 
and die another Socrates." Happily only one Socrates 
perished on this occasion, and David survived his first 
patron, as he was to survive his next, — Napoleon, whose 
coronation and second marriage live for us in his work as 
vividly as if we had seen them. 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 295 

Barrere had a personal fancy for the poet Joseph Chenier, 
whose moderate opinions seemed to point him out as the 
proper poet to be intrusted with the composition of a semi- 
religious hymn, which was to be a feature in the solemnity. 
Gossec, who was of advanced Revolutionary opinions, was 
chosen to compose the music. Gossec was then sixty-one 
years old, and was less celebrated for his operas than for his 
symphonies, which had paved the way for those of Haydn. 
Among his religious works was the celebrated Mass for the 
Dead, which was considered his finest composition. 

The fete was fixed for the 20th Prairial (June 8), and all 
the preparations were accomplished. The costumes had 
been designed and finished, the hymn was written, the music 
for it composed ; everything was ready. The only difficulty 
was that Sarrette, who always had had the direction of the 
music in the festivals of the Republic, was in prison. He 
had been there for two months, and nothing could be done 
without him. Before telling the reader how this misfortune 
befell Sarrette, — though, indeed, such misfortunes happened 
for no reason at all in those days, — we may as well explain 
by what concatenation of circumstances he had been brought 
to take so active a part in the Republic's festive celebrations. 
To do so we must go back a few years. 

Before the Revolution the musical organization of France 
was entirely religious. There were no singing-schools but 
those attached to the chapter in every catliedral. There 
young boys were brought up for the Church, but generally, 
if they proved to have good voices, they deserted to the the- 
atre. There was no musical instruction open to female 
pupils, except that of the opera-house, where a very few 
were received. Singing had not yet become an art to be 
cultivated. All that was necessary to please the public was 
a loud voice with considerable compass. A full-voiced 
singer was sure to succeed. 

At the small school attached to the Itahan opera-house in 
those days there was some good instruction, but the masters 
were all Italians, and the school was not open to the public. 
Orchestras picked up recruits wherever they could find them. 



296 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

There was tolerable violin instruction to be had in France, 
but the wind instruments were all played by Germans. The 
Marechal de Biron, however, had established in Paris what 
was called the Depot of the Gardes Fran^aises, to train 
musicians for the various military bands in the country ; so 
that thenceforward the theatres drew their performers from 
two sources, their singers from the church, and their orches- 
tras from the army. 

When the Gardes Frangaises were suppressed in 1789, 
M. Sarrette, then captain on the staff of the National Guard 
of his Section, obtained an order to continue the musical 
school for the benefit of the National Guard. After a while 
the National Guard was suppressed, and then Sarrette, fear- 
ing lest all the musical ability of France would be forced to 
abandon the country, persuaded the Commune to open a 
free school for music, the members of which, whether pupils 
or instructors, were obliged to lend their services at all 
national festivals. 

This school was placed under the charge of Gossec and 
Sarrette, and started in the Rue St. Joseph. It took the 
title of Musical Corps of the National Guard, — though that 
guard had been abolished. It was the source from which 
all the fourteen armies of the Repubhc drew their bands. 

This school was the germ of the present Paris Conserva- 
tory. Its musicians formed the orchestra of the Republic. 
They took part in all national festivities, and some of them 
played daily before the legislature. Indeed, music was fre- 
quently called upon to make a sort of interlude in the sittings 
of the Convention. Sarrette, by his co-operation in all the 
national fetes of the Republic, flattered himself that his 
civism would be above suspicion, and lived in happy security 
till he was one day suddenly arrested on the denunciation of 
a humble inhabitant of the Quartier Montmartre. 

This good man, wishing to get rid of the inconvenient 
practicing of a band of wind instruments in his neighbor- 
hood, bethought him of declaring to the authorities that he 
had heard the proscribed air "Vive Henri IV." played by 
one of the clarionets. By the ingenious device of denoun- 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 297 

cing the director he hoped to break up the school. Really 
and truly his shaft ought to have struck Gossec, but its 
victim was his co-director. 

For nearly three months poor Sarrette remaiiifed an inmate 
of the prison of Ste. P^lagie, expecting every day to be called 
before the Revolutionary Tribunal, which of course meant 
sentence and execution. At last the governor of the prison 
sent for him. "Citizen Sarrette," he said, "the Republic 
needs thee. Thou art to leave this place, but a soldier will 
not lose sight of thee till thou hast fulfilled the duty that 
the country has assigned thee. I do not say farewell, there- 
fore, but mi revoir.'''' 

Sarrette would have preferred a more definite dismissal ; 
but he had to accept things as he found them, and in com- 
pany with his guard, who stuck to him like his shadow, he 
went back to his old school-room. 

It was with considerable emotion that he saw the place 
once more, — the school he had created, — for whose future 
he had dreamed what seemed now impossible things. The 
cry of joy with which his concierge greeted him hardly raised 
his spirits. The co?icierge had been an old sergeant in the 
Swiss guard ; he had escaped the massacre, and Sarrette 
had protected him and provided for him. Fortunately this 
old soldier found an acquaintance in the sentry who accom- 
panied his benefactor. He easily persuaded him that he 
would pass his time more pleasantly drinking a few glasses 
in his loge than going upstairs with his prisoner to his cham- 
ber, especially as he could assure him that the only possible 
way that any one could get out of the house was to pass by 
the place where they would be both sitting. 

Sarrette, on entering his own rooms, found Gossec and 
Che'nier already in possession. They told him they had 
got him out of prison in order that he should superintend 
the production of a hymn they had composed together ; 
that this would bring him into communication with the 
authorities, and, that being the case, they thought it might 
lead to his complete liberation. 

A little hope was beginning to dawn on the unfortunate 



298 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

prisoner when his sentry came up to say that he was 
wanted by the Committee of Public Safety. No one could 
think without fear of that terrible tribunal, and Sarrette's 
reception, wnen he appeared before it, was by no means 
reassuring. 

" Citizen," said Robespierre, who was in the chair, " in 
three days there will be dLfete in the garden of the Tuileries 
and in the Champ de Mars, at which will be produced a 
hymn in honor of the Supreme Being, now solemnly recog- 
nized by the French Republic. Have you prepared any- 
thing suitable for such a fete ? " 

" Citizen/' rephed Sarrette, " here is a hymn, both words 
and music composed expressly for this occasion." So say- 
ing, he handed the chairman a manuscript that he held in 
his hand. 

Robespierre cast a careless glance upon the poetry, but 
when he got to the last verse and saw the name of its author, 
his sinister eyes gave a sudden glare. 

" What do you mean by this ? " he cried, striking his fist 
on the table before him. "This man is a Girondin — a 
Bressotin — a friend of Condorcet, — Chenier himself! Has 
he been chosen to celebrate one of the great acts of the 
Republic? What aristocrat has dared to intrust this work 
to him ? " 

And with these words he glanced round the group before 
him. Carnot was writing. Lindet and Prieur were looking 
over some marginal notes upon their papers. Couthon, 
Saint-Just, Billaud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois looked as 
angry as their leader. Barrere, having anticipated a storm, 
had shpped out of a side door as soon as he saw Sarrette 
put the paper into the hand of Robespierre. 

" Citizen," said Sarrette, quietly, pointing to the soldier at 
his side, " you may see by the company I am forced to keep 
that I have not been my own master for some time. I have 
had no chance to choose or to employ anybody. When I 
reached my own rooms this morning I found this poetry 
and this music waiting for me. All I have done is to bring 
them here for your approval." 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 299 

"Where do you come from?" asked Robespierre. 

" From Ste. Pelagie. I have been there three months." 

" What are you accused of? " 

"I am not accused of anything. The accusation is 
against the air ' Vive Henri IV.' It had the bad taste to 
let itself be played by somebody, I never knew by whom, 
in the municipal musical school-room. That is the reason 
I have been in prison three months." 

Robespierre shrugged his shoulders and thought a mo- 
ment, then he said, — 

"See here, you say you did not choose the author of 
these verses. I am willing to believe you, but you have got 
to choose me another author. You must bring me a new 
hymn for my approval, and the third day from now it must 
be publicly performed." 

" But, citizen, how can I in two days get the words written 
and the music composed, and the whole copied? I shall 
hardly have time to get my choirs together." 

"Your choirs? What do I want with a choir? I don't 
want a lot of you paid bawlers at twelve francs a head, 
which is what you have been hitherto charging the Republic 
at all her ceremonies. I don't want any choir, — under- 
stand ? Singers, indeed ! Aristocrats, artists, appendages 
to ancient royalty, fellows who sing for money, and for 
whoever will give it to them ! It 's the people — the whole 
people — who shall sing this hymn, and sing it for nothing. 
There shall be sixty thousand voices — a hundred thousand 
voices — two hundred thousand in the choir this time. 
That 's my notion of music. And that 's what I expect of 
you, citizen ! " 

Sarrette looked utterly confounded. 

" Well ! " said Robespierre, " what are you standing here 
for? Make haste, and get everything ready ; and remember 
one thing : you are let out of prison that a hymn to the 
Supreme Being may be sung ; and you will go back to 
where you came from, if the hymn is not sung according 
to my idea of it. Now go." 

There was no option. Sarrette now perceived that he 



300 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

would be pardoned if the piece could be written, learned, 
and executed in rather more than forty-eight hours. But the 
thing was impossible. Another thing too troubled him ; he 
had been hourly expecting his own death for three months, 
but he now saw that there was no escape for Che'nier. In 
vain he turned over in his own mind how he could save him. 

As he entered his own house his good concierge stopped 
him on the stairs. 

" Monsieur," he said (he dared whisper " Monsieur " 
when nobody was by), '•' here is a paper some one has left 
for you ; he said it was something very important." 

"Who brought it?" 

" A little humpbacked man, who would not tell me his 
name. He said he w^ould call to-morrow for an answer." 

Sarrette took the paper, but felt no interest in it, and did 
not open it. Sadly and slowly he mounted to his chamber. 

" Che'nier," he said on entering, " you are done for, my 
poor friend. Robespierre will have nothing to do with your 
hymn, for no other reason than because you wrote it and 
because he hates your principles. You must try to make 
your escape ; your death is certainly resolved on." 

" Escape ! escape?" cried Chenier. " How can I? " 

" There is one chance for you," said Sarrette, eagerly ; 
" hide yourself here. No one saw you come in bujt the con- 
cierge^ and, as you well know, he inay be trusted. Our 
pupils never come into this part of the building. No one 
will suspect you of seeking refuge in a place belonging to 
the government. So I must trust, my good fellow, you may 
be luckier than I, and avoid making acquaintance with 
Ste. Pelagic. I am going back there." 

" Going back ! " cried Gossec and Chenier together. 

" Yes, indeed," replied Sarrette, sadly. " I was only to be 
set free if the Hymn to the Supreme Being was duly sung ; 
and you know as well as I do that to get it rewritten, recom- 
posed, and rehearsed in two days is simply impossible." 

So saying, Sarrette flung himself into a chair, and the 
paper he was holding dropped from his fingers. Gossec 
I)icked it up. 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 30I 

" What 's this ? " he said to Sarrette. 

"I don't know. Open it; it is probably something about 
the school." 

All of a sudden Gossec's face became radiant. He sprang 
from his seat with a cry of joy. " Oh, friends ! " he shouted 
eagerly, " we are saved ! we are saved ! " 

" How saved?" 

" My music ! you, Sarrette ! you, Chenier ! The Eire 
Supreme ! the Republic ! everybody ! See here ! " He 
waved the paper in the air and read the following letter : 

" Citizen, — I hear there is to be a great fete given in recog- 
nition of the Supreme Being, and I send you some verses I have 
made for the occasion. I should be delighted to think that they 
were thought worthy of adoption. I will call to-morrow to learn 
their fate. 

" And by an especial providence, by the favor of the 
Supreme Being himself, the poem is in the same metre as 
Ch^nier's, and the stanzas are the same length; he has 
used some of the very same words. It can be set to the 
same music without an alteration. Come, my good fellows ! 
Cheer up, Sarrette ! " went on Gossec. " Get your choirs 
together, give out the parts, begin to make the arrange- 
ments ; we '11 get it sung." 

" Choirs ! " cried Sarrette. " There are not to be any 
choirs. The whole population of Paris is to sing." 

" The people ? " cried Gossec, in despair. " Why, the 
people can't learn parts." 

'■'■ There are not to be any parts." 

'"' What ? Are they all to sing together ? " 

" That 's the idea." 

" It is not my idea. I won't have my music sung in that 
way; I 'd rather tear it up than hear it murdered." 

" All right, then," said Sarrette, " if you 'd rather see me 
guillotined. I thought you might be willing to sacrifice your 
music to save the life of an old friend." 

Though Gossec was sixty-one, he was as impetuous as a 
lad of eighteen. He saw at once the absurdity of his enthu- 



302 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

siasm for his own composition. He flung his arms round 
Sarrette. 

" Ah, my good friend ! " he cried, " I '11 let them sing it all 
together ; they may sing it in every key at once, and as out of 
tune as they will. I forgot your life hung on the performance 
of my music. Let us see ; what must be first done ? " 

" We must get together every musician we know," said 
Sarrette, "and set them to work. I'll explain what they 
have to do when you get them here." 

Gossec set out at all speed. An hour after he came back, 
and with him Me'hul, Gretry, Cherubini, and a dozen others, 
the musicians and composers of the period. All welcomed 
Sarrette and fell into his views with enthusiasm. He ex- 
plained in a few words what must be done immediately. All 
the Sections were to be convoked, and before each was to 
appear a musician, either playing on some instrument him- 
self or with a pupil to play for him, to teach the people the 
hymn to be sung by the united voices of all Paris on the day 
after the morrow. Each promised to do his best for the 
Hymn to the Supreme Being. Sarrette himself set off for 
the committee, which was still in session. The words were 
approved with enthusiasm, and the Sections brought together 
by sound of drum. That evening and all the next day Paris 
became a singing-school. Cherubini stood on a balcony 
overlooking an open square, the Carrefour Gaillon ; a pupil, 
armed with a clarionet, played Gossec's melody. Cherubini 
sang the words in his vile Italian accent, and then, gesticu- 
lating and grimacing like a man possessed, shaking his fists 
and menacing his pupils when they sang false notes, he 
proceeded to instruct the crowd before him. Me'hul took 
another quarter, and accompanied himself on a violin. 
Four other composers of the same stamp conducted similar 
classes. Plantade and Richer, being singers by profession, 
gave their instruction with less trouble to themselves, and 
theirs were the most popular classes. By the next evening 
the " Father of Nature " might be heard sung, growled, 
howled, or hummed all over Paris, in every quarter, every 
street, and every dwelling. 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 303 

In the course of the same day Sarrette was informed that 
the citizen Desorgues wished to speak to him. He was so 
overwhehned with pubHc business that he was on the point 
of dechning to receive any visitor ; but this one entreated so 
earnestly for admission that he was let in. He was a small, 
shabby, deformed man, timid and insinuating in manner. 

" Citizen," he said, " you cannot guess the reason of my 
coming." 

" Pardon me," said Sarrette, " I think I can. You left a 
manuscript for me last evening. You have come to ask 
what decision I have arrived at respecting your poem." 

" No," replied the little man, " quite the contrary." 

" I don't understand you." 

" I have come to ask you to give me back my manuscript 
and to forget it was ever sent you." 

'' But why? " asked Sarrette, completely puzzled. 

Timidly the old man proceeded to explain. 

"I am," he said, "or rather I was once, the Chevalier 
Desorgues. Notwithstanding some former successes in 
society," here a grin of self-complacency accompanied his 
words, " notwithstanding my illustrious name and noble 
family, I have, for the last four years, been only too happy to 
live forgotten and unknown. All my friends and associates 
who did not emigrate in the beginning have, one by one, 
been suspected, arrested, and guillotined. I am the last 
remnant of the little colony we formed before the year '92, 
in the Rue St. Florentin. I am the only one who remains 
to be summoned before that monster of bloodthirstiness, 
that terrible tiger — Ah ! pardon me ; perhaps you are a 
friend of M. Robespierre ? — " 

" Not in the least," said Sarrette, with a smile. 

" Well, then," continued his visitor, " I live in fear of 
drawing his notice on myself. I dare not even change my 
lodgings. Being the last noble, the last aristocrat hving in 
our street, all eyes would be upon me. It occurred to me, 
however, that some brilliant act of civism might place 
me above suspicion. But the only acceptable acts of civism 
nowadays appear to be the denunciation of other people. 



304 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Yesterday it struck me that if I could write the Hymn to the 
Supreme Being, which I could do without violating the 
principles I have always professed, I might acquire such a 
reputation as a good republican that I might move in safety 
from the Rue St. Florentin. But last night I remembered 
that, on the contrary, I might only draw suspicion on myself , 
inquiries might be made into my past history ; and I have 
come to you to ask you to give me back my hymn and the 
letter I wrote you yesterday." 

" I am sorry, my dear chevalier, but I carried your hymn 
yesterday to the Committee of Public Safety, and M. 
Robespierre, as you call him, was delighted with it." 

" What ! did the monster think my verses good? " 

" Excellent, sublime ; and he intends they shall be sung 
to-morrow — the 20th Prairial — by the whole population 
of Paris. Why, how happens it that you have not heard 
your own words sung everywhere since last evening ? " 

" Monsieur, for months past I have scarcely ever been 
out of my own doors — " 

" Let me advise you to change your mind. Go to the 
fete. Let Robespierre see you and know you. His 
countenance may be your protection, should you incur 
any danger." 

"Then you do not think he aims at my destruction?" 

" On the contrary, I do not believe that he has ever given 
you a thought, and he will be quite disposed to patronize 
the bard of the Supreme Being, whose high pontiff he has 
constituted himself." 

By six in the morning an immense crowd took possession 
of the garden of the Tuileries, which had been closed for 
some days in order that David might complete his prepara- 
tions. An immense scaffolding, with ascending rows of 
seats, was set up against the principal pavilion of the palace, 
where the Convention then held its sittings. All the 
deputies were seated on these benches. Before them was 
an altar or antique tripod, like those used in incantation 
scenes at the Opera. Two stuffed figures, draped after the 
Greek fashion, one called Atheism, the other Fanaticism, 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 305 

lay at its foot. Behind the altar was an immense chair, very 
much after the pattern of a throne, intended for the high 
priest on the occasion. That high priest was none other 
than Robespierre; but his friend David could not succeed 
in persuading him to adopt a costume in harmony with the 
ancient Greek character which he gave to the rest of his 
preparations. 

Robespierre wore his hair powdered. His white muslin 
cravat was very carefully adjusted ; his shirt and his marseilles 
waistcoat were of irreproachable whiteness ; a bright blue 
coat, knee breeches, white silk stockings, and shoes with 
large gold buckles completed his costume, which had no 
connection with mythology. He stepped to the front of the 
platform, and, after a few airs, played by the Orchestra of 
the Republic, to which was assigned a place behind the 
members of the Convention, he delivered a long metaphysi- 
cal discourse, which nobody understood, but every one 
applauded.^ Then, whilst a hundred thousand voices sang 
the Hymn to the Supreme Being, he gave a signal with a 
large bouquet he held in his hand. The two stuffed figures 
were set on fire. When they were consumed, their ashes 
were scattered to the winds, after which an immense antique 
chariot, laden with allegorical personages, clad in Greek 
costumes, headed a procession which directed its course 
toward the Champ de Mars, where the same ceremonies 
were to be repeated. The altar was carried in the pro- 
cession by ballet girls from the opera, dressed in white 
tunics like those of the priests of Jupiter. Bundles of rods 
and ensigns were borne before the altar which needed only 
the letters S. P. Q. R. to be complete imitations of Roman 
standards. The grand pontiff and the members of the 
Convention joined in the march, followed by the orchestra 

1 Carlyle says of Robespierre's orations at the Jacobins : " What 
spirit of Patriotism dwelt in men in those times, this one fact it seems 
to us will evince : that fifteen hundred human creatures, not bound 
to it, sat quietly under the oratory of Robespierre ; nay, listened to it 
nightly hour after hour applausive ; and gaped as for the word 
of life." 

20 



306 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

and the populace. The same proceedings were gone through 
with on the Champ de Mars, and Sarrette, at the head of his 
musicians, was just making ready to go home after all was 
over, when an uproar in the crowd attracted his attention. 

He saw Gossec, who had just been recognized by the 
mob, borne in triumph on men's shoulders. Gossec, not 
liking the absurdity of being alone in his glory in so elevated 
a position, had pointed out to his admirers his fellow-laborer, 
the humpbacked chevalier, whom he perceived in the 
throng. Instantly a thousand stout, rough men pressed 
forward and raised the poet to the side of the composer. 
Their absurd appearance in this triumphal procession, their 
anxious faces, as they looked at each other with disquiet 
and astonishment, were beyond description. 

They were set at liberty at last, after having been borne 
round the Champ de Mars, and the fete terminated by the 
mob's singing and dancing the carmagnole round the Altar 
of Reason. 

Robespierre was enchanted. Everything had gone off to 
his entire satisfaction. Sarrette obtained full pardon, and 
was delivered from the company of his sentry, who, but for 
his fraternization vi^ith an old comrade in the porter's lodge, 
would have been intolerable. But though delivered from 
personal anxiety he continued to be very apprehensive as 
to the fate of Chenier. 

A poet is a poet wherever fate may place him. In the 
tedium of his captivity in the rooms of Sarrette, Che'nier 
wrote the " Chant du Depart," one of the noblest odes in 
the French language. Mehul, who knew his friend's hiding- 
place, came often to visit him, full of enthusiasm for those 
noble lines which Chenier read to him. He completed the 
work by setting them to music worthy of the words. 

Charmed with this noble work conceived and executed 
almost under his own eyes, Sarrette resolved on the first 
suitable occasion to bring it before the public. That op- 
portunity soon arrived ; the double victory won by the 
French at Fleurus was to be made the occasion of a national 
festivity. 



FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING. 307 

Sarrette ventured to present Ch^nier's military poem to 
the Committee of Public Safety as the work of a poet who 
desired to remain unknown. "Ah ! " exclaimed Robespierre, 
" this poem is worthy of the Republic. It is worth all the 
verses ever written by that vile Girondin Ch^nier ! " 

He ordered that the piece should be sent at once to the 
fourteen armies of the Republic, and that it should be called 
"Le Chant du Depart." He did better still : this time he 
let Sarrette engage a choir, which cost more than a popula- 
tion which sang for nothing ; however, the choir sang the 
best, and gave the song in parts, which was much more 
satisfactory to the composer than the popular method. 

The anonymous words and Me'hul's music had immense 
success. But the dangerous mystification of which the 
Committee of Public Safety had been the victim might any 
day be brought to light, and this possibihty gave Sarrette 
many anxieties. Happily, not long after, his fears were put 
an end to by the Ninth Thermidor ; and Ch^nier, after the 
death of Robespierre, put his name to the poem. 

The Feast of the Supreme Being was never again cele- 
brated. A year later, on the recommendation of Lajuinais, 
public worship was again permitted. The " Chant du De'part " 
long continued to share with the "Marseillaise" the privilege 
of exciting the ardor of the French armies ; and if it never 
attained the popularity of the hymn of Rouget de Lisle, it 
has at least the advantage of never having served as a rally- 
ing cry for hordes of ferocious insurrectionists. 

Che'nier not long after had the pleasure of gratifying 
Sarrette by getting the legislature of the period, of which he 
had become a member, to vote for the organization of the 
Conservatory of Paris, on the basis of a report which his 
friend had furnished him. 

Sarrette survived all other actors in these scenes. He 
witnessed the prosperity of the Conservatory which he had 
established, and he beheld the restoration of a French 
republic in 1848. It may be that he found music less 
encouraged under the republic of Lamartine than under 
the republic of Robespierre. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 

"D OBESPIERRE, when his two chief competitors for 
-*-^ popularity and power, Jean Paul Marat and Jacques 
Danton, had been removed out of his way (Marat on July 13, 
1793, Danton on April 5, 1794), began to feel the necessity 
for applying the brakes to the on-rushing course of the 
Revolution. We have seen how he planned to make peace 
with Austria, and to enlarge the borders of French territory 
by the acquisition of the Low Countries and the frontier of 
the Rhine. He also firmly rebuked the insolent attitude 
taken by Citizen Genet, the Girondist ambassador, toward 
the Government of the United States ; and we have wit- 
nessed his semi-comic appearance before all Paris as high 
pontiff of a revived worship of the Supreme Being. 

He was a man of theories, and when he held a theory he 
was ready at all sacrifices and at all risks to carry it out to 
the bitter end. His theory of government was that France 
under a republic must be great, happy, and glorious, and 
that he was the only man who had the will, if he could only 
obtain the power, to make her so ; granted that France 
would be the better if all her inhabitants were good patri- 
ots, — then, exterminate all who were not good patriots 
and good republicans ! 

Such had been his view of affairs. But the responsibilities 
of power had inspired him with disgust and aversion for the 
most part of his colleagues. A man of pure morals himself, 
he grew shocked at the wickedness, the greed, and the 
frenzied folly of his coadjutors. One by one he was bent 
on their destruction ; France should be great and happy 
when, by and by, he should rule alone. 




ROBESPIERRE. 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 309 

During the year 1793 the mania for change extended to 
everything, — to times and seasons, weights and measures, 
and geographical divisions. The four weeks from July 19 
to August 17, inclusive, became Thermidor, and 1794 the 
year II. of the Republic. We have seen how Mr. Gouverneur 
Morris, the American ambassador, and Mr. Thomas W. Grif- 
fith dated their letters according to the Revolutionary cal- 
endar. It might have cost any man his head to write 
July or January. 

In Thermidor, therefore, of the year II. of the Republic, the 
destinies of France seemed all in the hands of Maximilien 
Robespierre. He' had been a man of mark only two or three 
years ; before that time no one would have dreamed of pre- 
dicting for him an important place in history. 

In Thermidor of the year II.-"^ Robespierre was thirty-five 
years of age. He was rather short ; his face was sallow and 
bilious ; the EngHsh Carlyle calls him, in allusion to his 
complexion and his honesty, " the Sea-green Incorruptible." 
His eyes were without sparkle, almost without expression. 
His voice was sharp and thin. But though he was certainly 
not handsome, he took pains to be well dressed, and was the 
only one of the Revolutionary leaders who could have been 
called neat, or even clean. 

He was proud and ambitious. Believing in the subtle 
power of oratory, he was determined to become a great 
speaker. But with all his indefatigable perseverance, he 
never became an eloquent man. Nor was he a man of 
action ; personal bravery was not in his line. 

He Uved very modestly. In July, 1791, he left the lodg- 
ings in the Rue de Saintonge in the Marais, where he had 
lived with his sister, and accepted the hospitality of Duplay, 
an upholsterer, in the Rue St. Honore. 

Duplay was not a journeyman, but a master-workman, 
who owned about fifteen thousand francs in the funds. 
Robespierre had a little bedroom in his house, with a win- 

1 From the " Supplement Litteraire du Figaro," July 28, 1894, the 
anniversary of Robespierre's death. 



3 1 THE FRENCH RE VOL UTION. 

dow looking down on the workshops, or sheds, in which a 
good many workmen were employed. 

He was engaged to be married to Duplay's eldest daugh- 
ter, Eleonore, a tall woman with marked features. But 
their love-making was very calm, and they waited patiently 
for quiet days in which they might begin their married life 
together. 

Robespierre's only passion was for power, and he had 
showed much skill in getting rid of a multitude of those who 
stood in the way of his attaining it, — Girondists, Hebertists, 
and Dantonists. In Thermidor of the year 11. (July, 1794) 
he seemed to have realized his dreams. The Convention 
obeyed him through fear ; the Commune supported him from 
conviction. But in the Convention he had enemies. That 
great crowd of deputies, then sitting in the Tuileries, con- 
tained a group of Montagnards (Men of the Mountain) who 
were growing impatient of the yoke of Robespierre. Their 
leaders were Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, Barras, 
Fouche, Tallien, Fr^ron, Lecointre, and others. They felt 
themselves in danger from Robespierre, whom they called 
" the tyrant," and made ready for a coming struggle. 

Robespierre was not averse to it ; he hoped to rid himself 
by a supreme effort from these last opponents. He trusted 
to the Commune (the city government at the Hotel de Ville), 
which could be acted on by Lescot-Fleuriot, Mayor of Paris, 
and Payan, the National Commissioner ; and to the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal, whose President and Vice-President, Damas 
and Coffinhal, were his warm adherents. 

As to the Convention, he doubted not he could check- 
mate it, thanks to his friends Saint-Just, Couthon, and Lebas, 
aided by his own eloquence. The chances of a struggle be- 
tween the Convention and the Commune seemed to him all in 
his favor. He judged the time propitious for the fight, and he 
prepared to crush all attempts to revolt against his authority. 

On the 8th Thermidor the Convention, presided over by 
Collot d'Herbois, was in session. Robespierre, who had not 
attended its sittings for some time, mounted the tribune 
and prepared to speak. 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 3 1 1 

He read a long speech, according to his custom, the 
manuscript of which, full of erasures and interlineations, was 
found among his papers. It was evidently a paper that had 
been carefully prepared, defending his own virtue, patriotism, 
and devotion to the public good ; and he threatened his 
opponents in advance, depicting them as enemies to their 
country and the Revolution. It was the same course that 
he had pursued successfully several times before. 

He complained that he was calumniated. " They call me 

* a tyrant,' " he cried. " If I were a tyrant, they would be 
crawling at my feet." He declaimed against the Committee 
of Pubhc Safety and against other committees, especially that 
of finance. He complained of the superabundance of inter- 
est felt by the public in mihtary matters, and he cried, '• Un- 
less you keep a tight grasp on the reins of the Revolution, 
you may soon see a mihtary despotism establish itself, and 
some leader of the factions overthrow your representative 
assembly ! " 

He ended by denouncing fresh conspiracies against pub- 
lic liberty, and cried that the Committee of Public Safety 
ought to be purged, and be then set to work to exterminate 
traitors. 

All this shows plainly what was his object. Indeed, one 
of his creatures, a member of the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
had said a day or two before in the hearing of the Conven- 
tion, though he was in the next chamber, '' The Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal is awaiting some twenty deputies \ the 
bomb is ready to explode." 

Yet Robespierre's authority was still so great that his 
speech was loudly applauded. Lecointre demanded that 
it should be printed. Another deputy objected that the 
Assembly was moving too fast, and proposed to submit the 

• speech to the decision of the two committees. Barrere, not 
certain how the affair might terminate, approved the print- 
ing of the speech, but very vaguely. 

The debate continued long. It involved the death or life 
of many of the speakers. When at 5 p.m. the session closed, 
the question whether Robespierre's speech should be printed 



312 THE FREiYCH REVOLUTION: 

at the public expense was still undecided. Yet in one point 
of view the session had been of supreme importance ; for 
Robespierre for the first time had met with opposition. He 
left the Assembly astonished and furiously angry. The wish 
of effacing the check he had received led him to attend the 
Jacobin Club in the evening. There he was sure to be 
supreme, secure of being applauded. He re-read his speech, 
which his hearers received with acclamations. In order to 
excite greater enthusiasm for himself personally, he affected 
to consider himself a victim. "This speech that you have 
heard," he said, "is my last will and testament. I have 
seen my fate to-day ; the league formed by the wicked is 
so strong that I cannot hope to escape. I fall without 
regret. I leave you my memory ; let it be dear to you ; 
may you defend it ! " 

He said something about " drinking hemlock." David, the 
painter, exclaimed, "1 will drink it with you!" Couthon 
then proposed the expulsion of all deputies from the club 
who had opposed the printing of Robespierre's speech. 
This proposal was carried by acclamation. Billaud-Varennes 
and Collot d'Herbois, who were present, were hustled out 
of the Jacobin Hall with hootings and even violence. 

Leaving Robespierre at the club to enjoy his triumph, 
Billaud and Collot went at once to the Committee of Public 
Safety, which then met under the same roof as the Con- 
vention, at the Tuileries. There, sitting at the great oval 
table covered with green cloth, they found Carnot and 
Saint-Just, both busy with their papers. Saint-Just passed 
each sheet, when he had written it, to his secretary. 

Billaud and Collot, excited by the scene at the Jacobins', 
at once set on Saint-Just, as the friend of Robespierre, and 
reproached him with the conduct of his party. 

"You are writing denunciations against us at this very- 
moment ! " they cried, endeavoring to get possession of his 
papers. 

" Of course I am," said Saint-Just, with an air of mockery. 
Then, turning to Carnot, he said, " Possibly I am making 
out yours, too." 



THE FALL OF ROBESPLERRE. 313 

Carnot looked up quietly. " If that is so," he said, " what 
we shall have to do is to shoulder our muskets." With that 
he went on writing. 

Billaud and Collot were not so calm. They became 
violent. They even declared that they would lock up Saint- 
Just, and keep guard over him till morning. Saint-Just to 
appease them had to promise that he would submit his 
report to the Committee of Public Safety before he gave it 
in to the Convention. It was a promise he did not intend 
to keep. He was nowhere to be found the next morning, 
and up to eleven o'clock the Committee waited for him in 
vain. 

Meantime the deputies in the Convention who had 
attacked Robespierre were making preparations for the 
next day's struggle. They needed the support of the more 
moderate members of the Assembly, whom Robespierre had, 
to a certain extent, protected ; but they won them over 
to their support. 

Robespierre had set spies for some time past over the 
doings of certain deputies whom he believed to be his 
enemies, but he was, nevertheless, in complete ignorance of 
these proceedings. He took a walk in the Champs Elyse'es 
with Eleonore Duplay, to whom he was engaged to be 
married, accompanied by his great Danish dog Brount. 

Ele'onore was depressed and uneasy, and kept nervously 
caressing the dog. Robespierre pointed out to her the setting 
sun, which was going down into the purple west. 

" Ah ! it will be fine weather to-morrow ! " she cried, and 
the omen seemed to reassure her. 

They returned to the Rue St. Honore, and sat down to 
supper. The walk had probably calmed the first emotions 
of painful surprise felt by Robespierre in the Convention, 
for he was now serene. 

'■'■ I expect nothing from the Men of the Mountain," he 
said, " they want to get rid of me, and they say I am a 
tyrant, but the great body of the Assembly will support me." 

He slept that night confident of success, and the next 
morning, — the 9th Thermidor, — when he left the hospit- 



314 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

able house of the Duplays, his last words were : " The 
majority in the Assembly is pure. Be easy. I have nothing 
to fear." 

Thus began the celebrated 9th Thermidor, — July 27, 
1794. The weather was oppressively hot. The Conven- 
tion had met early. All felt it was a decisive day. Both 
parties counted on the support of the moderate men in the 
Assembly. Saint-Just, a friend of Robespierre, spoke first, 
but his speech was vague and hesitating. He was inter- 
rupted before he had gone far by Tallien, and by Billaud- 
Varennes ; both of them were men stained with the worst 
crimes of the Revolution, but they were now enemies to 
Robespierre, whom Billaud-Varennes attacked violently, 
accusing him of not having been willing to prosecute men 
who had been denounced as enemies of the Republic to the 
Committee ! 

Robespierre tried to answer him, but was silenced by 
howls of ''Down with the tyrant!" 

" I have seen the formation of the army of a new Crom- 
well," cried Tallien, " and here is the dagger with which I 
intend to pierce his heart, if the Convention should support 
him ! I demand that the Convention shall decree his 
arrest. I demand that it shall remain in session till the 
steel blade of the law shall have assured the Revolution, 
and we shall have got rid of him and of his creatures ! " 

These two propositions were adopted amid great ap- 
plause ; Billaud-Varennes then demanded the arrest of Damas , 
President of the Revolutionary Tribunal. It was at once 
decreed, and Damas was dragged from his bench to prison- 
Robespierre endeavored to speak. " Down with the 
tyrant ! " cried the Assembly. Barrere and Verdier tried to 
draw off the attention of the Convention to other topics, but 
Tallien brought back the Assembly to the point in question. 
There was great confusion among the deputies. The accu- 
sation against Robespierre was, not that he had guillotined 
innocent moderates or royalists, but that he had caused the 
arrest of advanced revolutionists. One man cried out : 
" The blood of Danton suffocates him ! " At these words 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 3 I 5 

Robespierre grew pale. " It is then Danton whom you 
are seeking to avenge ? " he said. 

As the decree of arrest was pronounced, Robespierre's 
brother sprang to his feet, crying : " I am as much guilty as 
my brother. I share his virtues. I ask for a decree of 
arrest for myself — " 

But in the general confusion little notice was taken of this 
courageous act of fraternal devotion. 

In vain Robespierre tried to speak. He uttered only 
disjointed reproaches and abuse of those attacking him. 
He had no skill in self-defence. They accused him of 
having blamed the Revolutionary government for its destruc- 
tion of the churches, and their desecration. At this there 
was a cry of " Let him be arrested at once ! " 

The decree of arrest was passed amid shouts of: "Vive 
la Liberte ! Vive la Republique ! " 

"The Republic?" cried Robespierre. "The Republic is 
lost, for brigands triumph ! " No attention was paid to him. 
The decree of arrest joined with him his brother, Saint-Just, 
and Couthon. Lebas cried out that such a decree was an out- 
rage, and demanded that his own name should be included. 
This was done accordingly. Fr^ron, one of the most san- 
guinary and infamous of the Revolutionists, led the attack, 
and declared that Robespierre, Saint-Just, and Couthon had 
plotted to form a triumvirate. "Couthon," he cried, "has 
aspired^to mount a throne! " "Oh ! of course," said Cou- 
thon, ironically, pointing to his disabled legs, useless from 
paralysis, on which he was unable to stand alone. 

It was five o'clock ; the session closed, and gendarmes 
carried off the accused to prison. 

The Commune, the municipal government of Paris, sitting 
at the Hotel de Ville, was faithful to Robespierre. The 
mayor ordered the tocsin to sound to rouse the Sections ; 
he had the barriers of the city closed, and proclaimed Paris 
in revolt against the scoundrels of the Convention. But his 
measures were paralyzed by the fact that Henriot was in 
command of the troops, — Henriot, the lowest, meanest 
of all the Jacobins, a man who had denounced his own 



3l6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

mother to the Revolutionary Tribunal, that he might rid 
himself of the care of her. He was drunk that day, as he 
usually was. On receiving orders from the Commune to 
call out the Sections, he rushed through the streets, pistol 
in hand, yelling to the people to take up arms. Some of 
those who heard him were alarmed, most were disgusted. 
As he passed a restaurant wnere a deputy was dining about 
six o'clock, the deputy saw him through a window, and 
shouted : '' Arrest that man ! His arrest has been decreed 
by the Assembly ! " Instantly six gendarmes who were in 
the street seized Henriot by the collar. The deputy (Robin 
by name) had him carried off a prisoner to the Committee 
of General Security, thence to the Committee of Public 
Safety. Billaud-Varennes and Barrere were there, but they 
were afraid of compromising themselves too far should 
Robespierre and his party prove victorious. Robin was 
indignant with their pusillanimity, and began to be anxious 
to get rid of his prisoner. 

Some ofificers of the Commune at that moment came up 
and rescued Henriot without resistance, he being all the 
time too drunk to know what was being done with him. 

The struggle was now between the Commune at the 
Hotel de Ville and the Convention at the Tuileries. 

Robespierre and the deputies arrested with him were 
sent to different prisons, — Robespierre to the Luxembourg, 
his brother to St. Lazare ; Conthon, Lebas, and Saint-Just 
to other places of captivity. But the Commune had sent 
orders that no prison should receive them ; and Saint-Just, 
Lebas, and the younger Robespierre regained their liberty, 
but not Robespierre, though he was eagerly expected every 
moment by the Committee of the Commune sitting in their 
council-chamber at the Hotel de Ville. At the gate of the 
Luxembourg he was met by a municipal officer, who or- 
dered his liberation, and took him and his captors to the 
Prefecture of Police, where the actors changed places. The 
captors became prisoners, and Robespierre was free. 

The Council of the Commune sent him earnest entreaties 
— even orders • — to join them, but Robespierre seems to 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 3 1 7 

have lost courage. All he would do was to send advice to 
the Hotel de Ville. The Commune, however, insisted on 
his presence, and sent a deputation, which at last brought 
him. His arrival gave courage to his friends. Crowds in 
the street filed past the Hotel de Ville swearing fidehty to 
the Commune. 

Couthon was the only one of the arrested deputies not 
present. Robespierre, his brother, and Saint-Just signed an 
order to him to join them. 

At about r a.m. on the loth Thermidor Couthon arrived, 
and they all began to deliberate on what should be next 
done. "Draw up a proclamation to the armies," said 
Couthon. ^ 

"In whose name?" said Robespierre, whose audacity 
seemed to have forsaken him. 

A terrible rain was falling, which greatly damped the 
ardor of the crowd in the streets. A proclamation was 
drawn up addressed to one of the Sections called the 
Section of Pikes, calling upon it to rise in arms. Three 
members of the Council of the Commune had signed it, 
and Robespierre had just taken the pen and written the first 
two letters of his name, when soldiers sent by the Conven- 
tion burst in. The Convention, having learned what was 
taking place, had acted at once. The tipsy Henriot had 
been able to take no military precautions to protect the 
Hotel de Ville and the municipality. 

The Convention, when it learned of the escape of Robes- 
pierre, Henriot, and the other prisoners, was at first in 
mortal fear. Deputies talked of dying at their posts, and 
so on. But danger gives courage. Some one proposed 
that Barras should be their leader, — the Barras who was 
subsequently the patron of Napoleon. Attended by twelve 
deputies girt with their scarfs of office, Barras assembled a 
considerable body of soldiers, and marched on the Hotel de 
Ville. At sight of the soldiers the crowd, already dis- 
heartened, drenched by rain, and conscious of the lateness 
of the hour, dispersed at once. Henriot, arriving before 
the Hotel de Ville, found his own soldiers of the Sections 



3l8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

in command of deputies from the Convention. He rushed 
up the staircase, crying, " All is lost ! " The pen dropped 
from the hand of Robespierre. 

The Commune was at the mercy of its assailants ; only, 
the assailants did not seem to assail. They were bewildered 
by their own success ; they were astonished that they had 
met no opposition. Many were afraid that preparations 
had been made to blow up the building. A gendarme, 
however, named Meda, braver than the rest, entered the 
Hotel de Ville, and made his way to the council-chamber. 
Robespierre was sitting at a table. Meda threatened him 
with a pistol, and cried, " Yield, traitor ! " 

Robespierre raised his head. " It is you who are the 
traitor," he said, " and I will have you shot." As he spoke, 
Meda raised a pistol in his left hand, fired, and broke his 
jaw. 

Robespierre, thus wounded, fell forward on the table, 
his blood staining the paper on which he had been about 
to sign his name. 

M6da, after his shot, turned and fled, carrying back his 
news to those commanding the armed men outside, who at 
once entered the Hotel de Ville. As they did so they heard 
a second shot. Lebas had killed himself. 

These shots, the cries and yells that rose, led to a general 
panic among Robespierre's party. The younger Robespierre, 
excited and terrified, tried to escape through a window. He 
walked a few steps outside on the cornice, then lost his 
balance, fell on the pavement, and broke his legs. 

Couthon, most of whose body was paralyzed, had been 
wounded in the head. He dragged himself into a cor- 
ner, where he lay motionless, counterfeiting death. Saint- 
Just did not move. He quietly awaited his doom. Henriot, 
who, by his drunkenness, weakness, and stupidity, had been 
the ruin of his friends, thought only of saving his own life. 
He tried to flee by a back-staircase, but one of Robespierre's 
friends, furious against him, flung him out of a window. 
He fell on a dung-hill,^ which broke his fall. Scrambling 
1 See page 151. 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 319 

out of this, he took refuge in a drain, whence he was dis- 
lodged, and placed with his acconiphces. Coffinhal, the 
man who had flung him from the window, alone escaped, 
and took refuge in the "lie des Cygnes," where he was so 
nearly starved that two days later he surrendered himself a 
prisoner. 

It was two in the morning. The Commune was van- 
quished. The reign of Robespierre was at an end. 

They brought stretchers on which they placed Robes- 
pierre, his brother, Couthon, and the body of Lebas. Saint- 
Just and the others followed as prisoners. The party 
marched to the Convention, and the doors of the Hotel de 
Ville were closed. 

At three o'clock Barras and his twelve deputies reap- 
peared in the Convention, and announced solemnly that the 
palace of the' municipality of Paris was in their hands ; and, 
as in those days no one stuck at any accusation, how- 
ever absurd, against a defeated enemy, they asserted that 
they had found a seal engraved with fieurs de lis, which 
proved that Robespierre was engaged in a royalist con- 
spiracy. 

Then it was announced that the stretcher, on which lay 
the wounded Robespierre, was at the door. The Conven- 
tion refused to let it enter. 

It was not necessary to send Robespierre and the rest 
before the Revolutionary Tribunal. They had already been 
pronounced outlaws. They were taken to the council-room 
of the Committee of Public Safety. An eye-witness tells 
us : : — 

" Robespierre was carried by the same men who had 
done so from the beginning. He hid his wounded face 
with his right arm. The party stopped for a moment at the 
foot of the great staircase of the Tuileries. Many people 
came round him from curiosity. Some of them lifted his 
arm to see his face. One said, ' He is not dead. He is 
still warm.' Another, ' He looks like a fine king ! does n't 
he ? ' And so on. The bearers were unwilling that any one 
should meddle with him, and those who were at the foot 



320 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

of the stretcher told those at the head to keep their end 
well up so as to preserve the little life there was in him. 
They mounted at last into the great room used by the Com- 
mittee. They laid him on a long table opposite a window, 
and placed his head on a box containing some remains of 
black bread, — soldiers' rations. He did not stir, but he 
breathed heavily'. He placed his right hand on his face ; 
evidently wishing to conceal it. Among those who had 
brought him were a fireman and a cannoneer, who kept on 
talking to him, making cruel jests, niocking and reproaching 
him. He wore his sky-blue coat and his nankeen breeches 
as he had done on the day of the Feast of the Supreme 
Being, seven weeks before ; but his clothes were in disorder, 
and his shirt was bloody. He had no hat and no cravat, 
and his white stockings had slipped down to his heels. 
About four o'clock it was noticed that he was holding a kid 
bag in his hand ; it was marked : An Grand Monarque, 
Lecourt, fournisseiir du Roi et de ses troupes, Rue St. Honore, 
Paris. He was using this bag to stanch the blood that 
came from his mouth. About six in the morning Elie 
Lacoste came into the room with a surgeon, whom he told 
to dress the wound, " that the prisoner might be in a condi- 
tion for what might follow." 

There is no need to relate how the wound was dressed, 
men standing round all the time and uttering words of cruel 
insult, " which he must have heard," says the eye-witness, 
" for he had still some strength, and often opened his eyes." 

Suddenly he rose to a sitting posture, pulled up his 
stockings, slid to the other end of the table, and reached a 
chair. As soon as he was seated, he made a sign that he 
wanted water and a clean handkerchief. He looked steadily 
at the men around him, and sometimes cast his eyes up 
to the ceiling. His complexion, which had always been 
sallow, was now livid. From time to time he made a con- 
vulsive movement, but in general he seemed passive. 

Saint-Just, who had been brought into the room shortly 
after Robespierre, was perfectly silent. His clothes were 
not disordered. Even his cravat was unrumpled. He wore 



THE FALL OF ROBESPLERRE. 32 1 

a coat, chamois color, a waistcoat with a white ground, and 
breeches of pale gray. But, notwithstanding his self-con- 
trol, his face showed his depression, his sense of humilia- 
tion, and his eyes were full of grief 

Around him stood Damas, Payan, and a few others. 
Robespierre's faithful dog, Brount, had not quitted his 
master. 

About nine on the morning of the loth Thermidor (July 
28), 1794, the prisoners were taken to the Conciergerie. 
Saint-Just as he entered the hall, where was hung a great 
picture of " The Declaration of the Rights of Man before the 
Convention," remarked, " And /made that !^^ Those were 
the only words that passed his lips during those long hours. 
As for Robespierre, not only was he assailed with all kinds of 
insulting words, but it is said that one or more men spat in 
his face and pricked him with their pen-knives. 

He asked a turnkey by a sign to bring him pen and ink, 
but the man answered : " What the devil do you want with 
pen and ink? Do you think you can write to your Supreme 
Being?" 

The task of the Revolutionary Tribunal was very simple. 
The accused were all outlaws. It had only to order their 
execution. It did so, to take effect that day on the Place 
de la R^vohition. 

It was not until towards evening, however, that the execu- 
tion took place. Some time was needed to remove the 
guillotine from the Place du Trone Renvers^ to the Place 
de la Revolution. 

The twenty-two prisoners were placed on three carts. 
Henriot, still half drunk, was placed next to the brother of 
Robespierre. Couthon lay in the third cart. The proces- 
sion moved slowly. When in the Rue St. Honore it 
stopped before Duplay's house, and a group of women 
danced round the cart that held the man who had had his 
home there. 

No outrage was spared Robespierre. Carrier, the wretch, 
made infamous by his noyades and cruelties at Nantes, 
followed the cart, crying, " Down with the tyrant ! " The 



322 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

crowd was immense, all hooting, cheering, and cursing. 
The condemned men seemed imperturbable, and continued 
silent. The crowd bawled out that they were cowards ! 

It was past seven in the evening when the procession 
reached the Place de la Revolution. Couthon was first 
executed, then the younger Robespierre. Saint-Just quietly 
mounted the scaffold. When twenty heads had fallen, came 
the turn of Robespierre. The executioner roughly snatched 
at the linen which bound his broken jaw, and his cry of pain 
was heard all over the Place de la Revolution. He was 
speedily laid on the plank. The blade fell, and the execu- 
tioner held up the head to the populace. Cries of : "Vive 
la Convention ! Vive la R^publique ! " responded to the sight. 
Joy seemed to manifest itself among the spectators. 

Shortly afterwards Tallien congratulated the Convention, 
inviting it to share in the general rejoicing, " for the death 
day of a tyrant should be a festival for fraternity." 

This revolution known as the 9th Thermidor has never 
deserved the place it occupies in the history of the Revolu- 
tion. To us it is memorable chiefly for having opened the 
prison-doors to many in whom all generations take an 
interest ; but the men who made this revolution were on 
the whole worse than those who fell in it. It was simply a 
struggle for power between two sets of Jacobins. The power 
of Robespierre fell because it had no foundation. Every- 
thing that happened was a surprise to all concerned ; cow- 
ardice and meanness were everywhere conspicuous. Two 
or three men only showed any energy or decision. Every- 
thing was hap-hazard. 

Robespierre's sole aim was personal. He wanted to 
attain supreme power. The enemies he destroyed or op- 
posed were his personal enemies. He makes but a sorry 
figure among historical personages ; his aim was without 
elevation ; even his vices were not great. The only act 
which individualizes him in history is his invention of the 
worship of the Supreme Being. He had none of the better 
qualities of those earlier leaders of the Revolution who 
became his victims. • 



THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE. 323 

He was austere in his morals, and incorruptible in honesty. 
He despoiled no man of his money, — only of his dearest 
relatives or of his own life. His cruelty was calm, impassive, 
and had always some personal end in view. But his work 
on earth was a work of death. Some one thus wrote his 
epitaph after his execution. 

" Stranger, whoe'er thou art, 
Weep not for me. 
Had I lived, it would have been 
Death, friend, for thee ! " 



w 



CHAPTER V. 

A CHAPTER OF EPISODES. 

Episode First. — Robespierre as a Poet. 

E all imagine that we know everything that can be 
known about Robespierre, and we know something 
about Lazare Carnot, grandfather of the late President of 
the Third French Republic ; but few persons suspect that in 
1783 they, together with all the young aristocrats of Arras, 
sang songs in praise of wine and love and beauty, and, 
crowned with roses, recited in public ballads and madrigals 
of the Middle Ages. 

Both Robespierre and Carnot were active members of the 
Society of the Rosati, founded in Arras in 1778. The 
meetings of this society took place on the banks of the 
Scarpe, in a bower of roses planted for that purpose. The 
meetings of the Society were held only at the season when roses 
were in bloom, and the candidate for admission was required 
to pluck a rose, to inhale its fragrance three times, and to 
place it in his button-hole, after which, taking a full glass of 
rosy wine, he drank it at one draught to the health and 
prosperity of all Rosati, receiving at the hands of the Presi- 
dent a diploma in verse, which was to be responded to in 
like manner. 

Here are the verses that Robespierre offered to the Society 
on his admission, — 

THE ROSE.i 

I SEE in the nosegay you offer 

A sharp thorn, side by side with the rose. 

Your poetic words shame the poor proffer 
Of thanks, gentle sirs, in poor prose. 

1 This poem was translated by me from the " Supplement Litte- 
raire du Figaro," and the translation was published in "Harper's 
Magazine," April, 1889. — E. W. L. 



EPISODES. 325 

The things you so charmingly said 

Plave confused me and rendered me dumb ; 

The rose is the compliment paid, 
The thorn the poor answer to come. 

Ah, yes, in this beautiful y^/^ 

Where good fellowship reigneth alone, 
What bud with the rosebud can mate ? 

What verses can equal your own ? 
I bewail the sad fate that is ours, — 

The fate that misplaces — alas ! — us ; 
For what the rose is among flowers, 

Your poems would be on Parnassus. 

When I ponder your gift I confess 

'Tis less generous, sirs, than I thought it, 
And my sense of your kindness grows less 

With my knowledge of whence you have brought it. 
Your sacrifice, sirs, may be found 

Not so great as the world would suppose ; 
Since your gardens with laurels abound, 

You can spare me the gift of a rose I 

Episode Second. — Robespierre'' s Private Life with the Family 
of Duplay} 

It is said that M. Sardou, the dramatist, is about to write a 
history of Robespierre's career ; this paper is taken from a 
conversation in which he freely communicated many par- 
ticulars he had gathered in his researches. 

Some writers have told the public that the house of the 
cabinet-maker Duplay, in which Robespierre lodged during 
the months when he held power in France, has been utterly 
destroyed. This is not so. It is standing intact, and is now 
inhabited by a M. Vaury. Its number is now 398 Rue St. 
Honore. On each side of the porte cochere leading to the 
house, which stands back in a yard, was a small shop in 
Robespierre's day. One shop was occupied by a jeweller ; 
the other was a restaurant. Two doors away was another 
for the sale of working materials and embroidery, kept 

1 From an article in the "Supplement Litteraire du Figaro," 
August II, 1894. 



326 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

by Madame Condorcet, wife of a proscribed Girondist 
deputy. This lady also took portraits, and thus gained her 
livelihood. 

" "I have been in the bed-chamber," said M. Sardou, "in 
which the dictator may be said to have barricaded himself 
from the intrusion of the world. It was no easy matter to 
approach him in private. He kept himself well out of reach 
of troublesome solicitations." The room that he inhabited 
was completely surrounded by the bed-chambers of the 
family ; and the workmen who carried on their carpentry and 
upholstery in the back yard were at all times within his sight 
and call. The chamber of El^onore Duplay, the fiancee of 
Robespierre (called in her own family Corndlie), was in a 
different part of the house. 

Robespierre had had no acquaintance with the Duplay 
family before July 19, 1791, when a riot took place after a 
great reunion of revolutionists upon the Champ de Mars. 
Robespierre was present at the Jacobin Club that day, where 
a few of those who called themselves the " friends of liberty " 
had been assembled. "The courtyard of our Club," 
said a Jacobin eye-witness of what took place, "was sud- 
denly filled with artillery-men and chasseurs a barrieres, 
blind instruments of the fury of Lafayette and his partisans. 
Robespierre was alarmed at the idea of passing through the 
courtyard in order to reach his home, when the sitting should 
be ended. He heard the soldiers uttering curses and threats 
against the Jacobins, and he knew himself to be a prominent 
member of the club. He trembled so much that he had to 
lean on the arm of Lecointre of Versailles, who was wearing 
the uniform of a major in the National Guard, and on that 
of Lapoype, afterwards a general of division, but at that 
time one of the Jacobins. 

" Robespierre did not dare to go back to his lodgings, then 
No. 20 in the Rue Saintonge, where he was living with a 
man named Pierre Villiers, employed by him at that time as 
his secretary. He asked Lecointre if he did not know of 
some place near the Tuileries where a good patriot M^ould 
shelter him in safety for that night? Lecointre proposed to 



EPISODES. 



327 



him to go to Duplay's house, and took him there. From 
that day forth Robespierre took up his abode with the 
Uuplays." 

The house belonging to Maurice Duplay was then 366, but 
is now 398, in the Rue St. Honore. It consisted of a hall 
on the ground-floor and a dining-room opening on the 
yard ; from the dining-room a staircase led up to the rooms 
above. Duplay and his wife had a large chamber on the 
story above the ground-floor {aic premier'). Their four 
daughters had rooms at the back of it. The bed-chamber 
of Maximilien Robespierre looked to the west ; the nephew 
of Duplay, Simon by name, who acted as secretary to the 
dictator, and Duplay's young son, who bore his father's 
name, slept in the next chamber. 

The father, Maurice Duplay, was a little more than fifty 
when he made the acquaintance of the dictator. He was 
born in 1738, at St. Didier-en-Velay. His parents were 
Jacques Duplay and his wife, Marie Bontemps. The pair 
had had ten children. Mathieu, the eldest son, and Maurice, 
one of the younger ones, became cabinet-makers. Maurice 
was very young when he left his native village to make his 
journeyman's tour through France. After long wanderings 
he settled in Paris, where, in consequence of some fortunate 
speculations, he soon amassed an enviable little fortune. 

After a while he became the owner of three houses, — one 
in the Rue 1' Arcade, one in the Rue du Luxembourg, and 
one in the Rue d'Angouleme. He himself lived in the 
house on the Rue St. Honors, for which he was to pay in 
instalments eighteen hundred francs, and two hundred francs 
a year besides as rent to the Sisters of the Conception, who 
owned the property. 

Maurice Duplay had retired from business when the 
Revolution broke out, and he does not seem to have taken a 
prominent part in Revolutionary matters. 

According to Lebas, as he was a property-holder, he was 
forced to become a juryman on the criminal court of his 
Section ; and in consequence of holding this position, it was 
impossible for him to refuse to serve on the jury of the 



328 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Revolutionary Tribunal, notwithstanding his repugnance to 
take part in its affairs. 

He was not on the jury that tried the queen or Madame 
Elisabeth, though some writers have said so, and he exer- 
cised his terrible functions as seldom as possible. Some- 
times he pleaded the necessity of attending to certain 
buildings with wliich he had been intrusted by the govern- 
ment, and thus escaped attending the Tribunal. Most of 
the trials to which his name is appended took place without 
him. When, after the fall of Robespierre, Fouquier-Tinville 
and all the jurymen of his Tribunal were arraigned in the 
very court where they had exercised their judicial functions, 
Duplay was the only one who was acquitted. In point of 
fact he was a thoroughly good man. In forty years of hard 
work he had acquired about fifteen thousand francs' worth 
of real estate. But the disorders of the country soon depre- 
ciated his property and impaired the prosperity he had 
laboriously and quietly achieved. 

His wealth was in houses. The houses would not let, 
and Duplay found himself obliged to resume his business. 
This account is taken from part of a letter from Madame 
Duplay to her daughter Madame Auzat, found in Duplay's 
house after the loth Thermidor. 

Madame Duplay was the daughter of a carpenter of 
Choisy. She was arrested and imprisoned at Ste. Pelagic 
during the night of the 9th Thermidor, together with her 
husband and her young son ; and she died in the prison, 
strangled by the women who shared her captivity. 

She had had four daughters : Sophie, who married a 
lawyer named Auzat ; Victoire, who never married ; Elisa- 
beth, born in 1773, who married on August 20, 1793, the 
deputy Lebas, who perished with Robespierre ; and El^onore, 
who was a year older. El^onore was called Cornelia by her 
family, from some allusion to the mother of the Gracchi, and 
she lived until after the Restoration. 

The only son of Maurice and his wife was the boy 
Maurice. He was employed when lie grew to manhood as 
a clerk in the Bureau of the Administration Centrale of the 



EPISODES. 329 

Seine; later, in 1814, he was made superintendent of the 
hospitals and asylums of Paris, — a post which he held almost 
till his death, which took place in 1846. Simon Duplay, his 
cousin, who had been employed by Robespierre as his 
secretary, had enlisted in the army and lost a leg at Valmy. 
He then was kindly received by his uncle into his family, 
where Robespierre made him a kind of humble assistant. 
We need hardly say that he was not paid much, for Robes- 
pierre considered that he did him a great honor by choos- 
ing him to write under his dictation. After Thermidor poor 
Simon was thrown into prison, and all his papers were 
seized. He married subsequently, and his son became a 
doctor. . Another member of the family, Dr. Simon Duplay, 
is still living (1894). He is a member of the Academic de 
Medecijie, a clinical professor in the School of Surgery, etc. 

Robespierre's private life, while he lived with the Duplay 
family, seems to have been a regular and quiet one. Only 
thrice did he sleep out of the house, and then he went to 
visit his sister at Arras. The only recreation he allowed 
himself was occasionally a walk in the Champs Elys^es 
along the edge of the Jardin Marboeuf, which was the 
fashionable promenade at that day. More frequently he on 
his return from the Convention preferred to work quietly at 
home. 

His chamber was very simply furnished. He had a 
walnut bedstead with flowered blue damask curtains made 
out of an old gown of Madame Duplay's. There were some 
straw chairs and a common chest of drawers, and some 
pine shelves hanging from the wall which held his little 
library. This consisted principally of the works of Corneille, 
Racine, Voltaire, and Rousseau. The room had only one 
window, which looked down upon the sheds where the 
carpenters did their work, so that all day long Robespierre 
read and wrote to the sound of saws and hammers. 

He got up very early, and the first thing he always did 
was to go down into the shop and wish M. and Madame 
Duplay good-morning. 

Then he settled himself to work for some hours, taking 



330 THE FRENCFI REVOLUTION. 

no refreshment but a glass of water. Nobody at that time 
dared to disturb him. Daily, however, he had his hair 
dressed, and this operation took place on a little open 
gallery which overlooked the courtyard. At this time per- 
sons who wished to look at him could do so. Crowds came 
in the days of his popularity, but he took little notice of 
them ; generally he read the paper, and calmly ate his 
breakfast, — a little wine and bread and fruit. When he was 
not reading he looked straight before him with his eyes 
fixed upon the ground and his head upon his hand, as if he 
were engaged in very serious and important thoughts. 

After breakfast he went back to his work, until the time 
came for him to appear at his place in the Committee of 
Public Safety, or the Convention. He never received any- 
body in the morning, unless the visitor was willing to avail 
himself of the time when his hair was being dressed. He 
dined with the family, and it is recorded that he ahvays said 
grace. 

On one occasion he was highly displeased because 
Madame Duplay made some remark about her table being 
probably not as good as he ought to have. On principle he 
never paid more when prices advanced than he had engaged 
to do at first, because he said it might encourage bad habits 
on the part of his entertainers, and even during the famine 
he added nothing to the housekeeping, that they might be 
forced to make no difference on his account. If he accepted 
an invitation to dinner he never told them, on the presump- 
tion that nothing especial would be prepared for him, so it 
could make no difference. But, on the other hand, as he 
was unwilling that these good people should derive no 
advantages from his position, he did many good offices for 
their children. The son, who was also a cabinet-maker, he 
promised to establish in business, or at least to assist in his 
estabhshment, and he promised the daughters handsome 
wedding presents, provided they married citizens who had 
borne arms for their country. 

At table he ate whatever was provided for the family, 
and drank their sour wine. After the meal was over he had 



EPISODES. 331 

coffee served for him and stayed for an hour in the house 
ready for visitors ; then he generally went out. After he 
became head of the government he engaged a secretary ; 
but before that his writing was done, as we have said, by the 
orphan nephew of Duplay, who also did his errands. 

He generally came home late, for he would often work in 
the Committee of Public Safety up to midnight. But even 
if he was not at the Committee, he never came home before 
twelve o'clock. Where was he up to that time? No one 
ever knew. If any one wanted him in the evening he 
was told to put off seeing him till the next day. 

These particulars have been gleaned from the unpublished 
reminiscences of a contemporary, who speaks also of his 
extreme temperance, which the world knew already. During 
the last months of his life he drank nothing but water, being 
apprehensive that a free use of wine or liquor might make 
him say something he had better have kept unsaid. The 
only indulgence he allowed himself was in oranges, a number 
of which he ate at every meal. A perfect pyramid of them 
was always placed before him at dessert, and he ate them 
at all seasons with avidity. It is possible that he may have 
thought they counteracted his bilious tendency. 

In 1785, before the Revolution, Robespierre has been 
described as a short man, " with insignificant features, much 
pitted with the small-pox. His forehead was arched and 
white, his glance dark and uncertain ; he looked like a man 
whose prominent traits of character were hatred and envy." 

Another contemporary says that, although his head had 
none of the leonine character so imposing in Mirabeau and 
Danton, in spite of their ugliness, there was something in 
his " persuasive expression " that at once impressed the 
beholder. " He had long light brown hair, which he wore 
turned back, a broad forehead, bare on the temples, some- 
what arched, and prominent above the eyebrows ; his eyes 
were keen and clear, full of thought, but concealed unfor- 
tunately by spectacles, which short-sight rendered indispen- 
sable to him ; his nose turned up a little ; his chin was firm, 
with a slight dimple. Such was his appearance." 



332 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

This portrait is wonderfully flattering if we may believe 
others drawn by his contemporaries, who speak especially of 
the uncertainty of his glance and the near-sightedness of his 
vision. Sometimes he wore green spectacles. 

As for his clothes, they were always well made, well 
chosen, and carefully put on ; and he alone of the members 
of the Convention continued to wear ruffled shirt-fronts and 
lace at his wrists. A painter of the period has described 
him with his hair well powdered, in a white embroidered 
waistcoat turned back with some soft color, and in all other 
respects dressed with the fastidiousness of a dandy of 1 789. 

What was it in the personality of Robespierre that could 
have won the affections of Ele'onore Duplay? He cared 
little about her sex. He was too much occupied by 
dreams of ambition to let himself fall under the influence of 
a woman. " He cared neither for women nor for money, 
and took no interest whatever in his own private affairs." 

He seems to have accepted the attentions of Ele'onore 
Duplay rather than to have been in love with her. Her 
face was somewhat masculine, — not a face with which most 
men would fall readily in love. 

She was pale, with thin lips and expressionless eyes. 
There is a portrait of her in pastel in the Muse'e de la Re'vo- 
lution. She looks cold and stern, without any charm of 
gayety or tenderness. 

There have been two theories concerning Eleonore 
Duplay, — one that she was Robespierre's mistress, the other 
that she was hi?, fiancee. Charlotte Robespierre, the dictator's 
sister, thought that Madame Duplay, being anxious for the 
honor of having such a son-in-law as Robespierre, did all 
in her power to make the match ; while Eleonore, who was 
ambitious on her own account, did all she could to captivate 
the heart of Maximilien. But Robespierre, according to his 
sister, was not to be captivated. The attentions bestowed 
on him annoyed and disgusted him. But this view was 
probably prompted by prejudice and jealousy. 

Robespierre found himself the object of wann affection in 
the Duplay family ; and he could not but be sensible of their 



EPISODES. 333 

kindness. They positively adored him ; and when he could 
spare any time from public life, he seemed to revive in this 
atmosphere of devotion and kindliness. It was especially 
when dinner was over and they all passed into the salon 
" furnished with heavy mahogany, covered with stamped 
woollen crimson plush " (velours d'' Utrecht') that Robes- 
pierre enjoyed the society of the family. While the girls 
occupied themselves with needlework or embroidery, Maxi- 
milien would read aloud from Voltaire's works or Rousseau's ; 
from Corneille or Racine. He read well, with much interest 
in what he read, and enjoyed at the same time the pleasure 
he was giving. 

On Thursdays these meetings lost their family character. 
Other guests joined the circle. During the time of the 
Constituent Assembly the brothers Lameth were often there. 
Afterwards, in the days of the Legislative Assembly, Merlin 
(de Thionville) came, Collot d'Herbois, Panis, and Camille 
Desmoulins, whom Robespierre, after serving as best man at 
his wedding, sent to the scaffold. Artists came also, Gerard 
the painter, Prudhon, and Buonarotti, an authentic de- 
scendant of Michael Angelo, who played the piano. Then 
there was Lebas, who was a passionate admirer of Itahan 
music and a good performer. So that sometimes for hours 
politics were laid aside in these reunions. 

Lebas was faithful to Robespierre to the last. When 
arrested with his friend and leader, he blew out his brains. 
His wife, Elizabeth Duplay, was confined afterwards in prison, 
where Philippe Lebas, her son, was born. It was this 
Philippe Lebas who was subsequently chosen by Queen 
Hortense to be tutor to her son, the future Emperor 
Napoleon III. 

In 1854 Philippe Lebas lived near Paris, at Fontenay- 
aux-Roses. Every Saturday he went to see his mother, a 
most respectable old lady, well known throughout her neigh- 
borhood for her piety and charity. A little anecdote told by 
Doctor Latour, who frequently visited her, may fitly close this 
paper. 

When the doctor first knew her his attention was attracted 



334 "^^'^ FRENCH RE VOL UTION. 

by a large and handsome parrot, which Madame Lebas 
seemed to hold in great consideration, and on which she 
lavished every kind of care and caress. 

" The bird was often an interruption to our conversation," 
said the doctor, " breaking in with bits of the ' Marseillaise,' 
or the chorus of the ' Qa ira.' ' 

' Qa ira, Qa ira ! 
Les aristocrates a la lanterne ;' 

or the other well-known lines from the same song, — 

' Madame Veto avait promis 
De faire egorger tout Paris.' " 

" Hush ! hush ! my little pet," Madame Lebas would say 
to him. But the bird seldom paid her much attention when 
he was in the humor to troll out his demagogic songs. 

One day the doctor ventured to say, " Your bird seems 
very much of a Revolutionist." 

" Of course he is," she answered, in a low voice ; " he was 
the parrot of our saint, Maximilien Robespierre." And as 
she said this, the good lady made the sign of the cross.^ 

" Yes," she continued, " this parrot was bequeathed to 
me when our family was broken up. We Duplays were 
devoted to our saint " (here she again made the sign of the 
cross) " until his martyrdom ..." 

So here was this most respectable old lady, a pious Chris- 
tian, and a fervent Catholic, whose intellect and whose 
morals were above suspicion, giving to Robespierre the 
honor due to a martyr and a saint, and declaring him the 
victim of the wickedness and perversity of mankind ! 

She had taught the parrot several sentences above and be- 
yond his original repertoire. 

One day she said to her visitor, " Come here. Go up to 
the bird and say Robespierre." 

" Hat off ! Hat off ! " cried the parrot, fluttering his 
wings. 

" Say Maximilien," prompted Madame Lebas. 

" Maximilien ! " repeated the doctor. 

" Martyr ! Martyr ! " screamed the bird. 



EPISODES. 335 

" Now say Ninth Thermidor ! " 

" Ninth Tliermidor ! " 

" Fatal day ! " repUed the parrot. 

" Go on, and ask him where saint Maximilien is now I " 

When this question was put the bird answered, — 

" In heaven ! " 

Madame Lebas died at Fontenay-aux-Roses, about 1840. 
Her son Philippe died in i860. But what has become of the 
parrot ? 

Perhaps he is ahve still. Parrots, they say, can live more 
than one hundred years. 

Be that as it may, the story of Robespierre's parrot seems 
a very touching one, and may well be added to the stories 
already in circulation regarding the pigeons and the canaries 
of the same master. 

Episode Third. — The Revolutionary Calendar?- 

One of the things which made the French Revolution 
memorable was, in the language of the period, that it repre- 
sented "the triumph of ideas." But the "ideas" of the 
Revolution were not new ; and for the most part they sprang 
from purely English sources. Even unbelief, which counted 
for so much in the general overturn of France in the eighteenth 
century, was no new thing. The fool had said in his heart 
there is no God, and had become corrupt and abominable 
before the days of Pere Duchene. Nay, even the Encyclo- 
pedists had been anticipated in England by Hobbes, Toland, 
Tindal, Shaftesbury, and Woolston. The simple solution of 
the whole matter is, that while ideas had been steadily grow- 
ing and maturing in English minds, the French mind had 
lain comparatively fallow. Then, having suddenly awakened 
to certain ideas, the French philosophers of the eighteenth 
century imagined they had a monopoly of wisdom, and boldly 
undertook to instruct the world in those "principles of '89 " 
which they were unaware they had borrowed from England. 

1 Abridged from an article signed Francis Hitchman in the 
"National Review," 1889. 



336 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Amongst the "ideas" of the Revolutionary period none 
took a firmer root or exercised a wider influence than the 
reform of the existing standards of weights, measures, and 
time. As to the weights and measures, some national stand- 
ard was sorely needed. Arthur Young in his travels, shortly 
before the Revolution, says, " The infinite perplexity of the 
measures exceeds all comprehension. They differ not only 
in every province and every district, but almost in every 
town." That some reform was necessary in measures and 
in weights was evident, even to this travelling Englishman, 
who concerned himself with facts, and not " ideas," and the 
decimal system introduced into France at that period has 
proved of both value and convenience, though long after 
small shopkeepers in by-streets of Paris, or in the country, 
charged their customers in sous, and sold their goods by the 
kilo, the aune, and the demi-litre, while the class above them 
still talks of louis and e'cus, as their grandfathers did. 

All these things were to be swept away in the Revolution 
of '89. They were marks of feudality, traces of what Victor 
Hugo has called le pied de Charlemagne. The Constitution 
of '89 had guaranteed " liberty of worship ; " the Republic 
denounced worship of any kind ; and the Terror mercilessly 
guillotined those who were such bad citizens as to seek for 
moral support in religion. Having got rid of Christianity, 
having in its own phrase " abolished God " and enthroned 
a Goddess of Reason on the high altar of Notre Dame, it 
seemed only natural to abolish the calendar, which, by its 
nomenclature and divisions of time, recalled its ecclesiastical 
origin. Helen Maria Williams ^ tells us in her reminiscences 
of her residence in France, that the desire was openly ac- 
knowledged, " by a different nomenclature of the months, 
weeks, and days, to banish all the commemorations of Chris- 
tianity and prepare the way for abolishing religion itself." 

1 The life of Helen Maria Williams was certainly not sans reproche, 
although she carefully educated the orphan children of her sister, one 
of whom lived to be M. Coquerel, the celebrated Protestant pastor in 
Paris, and she was the author of that beautiful hymn, " When Thee I 
seek, Protecting Power." — E. W. L. 



EPISODES. 337 

In the Convention the change was explained and sup- 
ported by familiar phrases. The calendar in use was con- 
demned as being "anomalous," because there was no reason 
for beginning the year on the ist of January, "except the 
pleasure of Numa Pompilius, who wished to propitiate the 
god Janus ; " because the division of the year into periods 
of seven days was " unscientific," since a week of seven 
days does not represent one of the phases of the moon ; be- 
cause it is absurd that the sun should rule the day of twenty- 
four hours, while the moon regulates the years, and so forth. 
The order of nature, in short, was out of harmony with the 
science and philosophy of 1792-93. All that could be done 
in view of the perversity of nature was, therefore, to make the 
best of the situation and subdue the recalcitrant months and 
weeks as completely as possible. The matter was therefore 
referred to the Committee of Public Instruction, of which 
Romme was the chairman. 

Rorame was a singular specimen of the man of science 
turned politician. His fellow-provincials in Auvergne sent 
him as their representative to the National Convention, where 
he at once took his place on the Mountain and devoted him- 
self to the task of remodelling society on democratically 
philosophic principles. Under the Terror he prospered ; 
but in the reaction which followed the death of Robespierre 
he was arrested and brought to trial, — " not for what he 
had done, but for what he was," — and dramatically ended 
his life by stabbing himself at the bar of the military tribunal 
which had condemned him (17th of June, 1795). 

His report was adopted by the Convention Oct. 5, 1793 ; 
and five days later one of those extraordinary national fetes 
which fill us with amazement and amusement took place in 
honor of the event at Arras, a little town best known to fame 
as the birthplace of Robespierre. These performances ex- 
cited great enthusiasm in republican bosoms at that time, 
and there are still some persons who profess to consider 
them "sublime and affecting." 

It is said that twenty thousand people walked in proces- 
sion at Arras in honor of the new division of time. They 

22 



338 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

were divided into groups according to their ages, and rep- 
resented tlie months. Following the twelve months came 
a little " sacred group," representing the supplementary days 
which made up the republican year, and last of all came the 
representative of leap year, — a venerable centenarian, who, 
after the march past was over, planted a tree of hberty. 
There were bevies of virgins in white, and parties of artisans 
who " consecrated their tools by touching the tree of liberty 
with them." The elders grouped themselves around it and 
ate and drank, while the youths and maidens waited upon 
them. 

The new calendar succeeded in producing the most ad- 
mired disorder under the pretext of simplicity and regularity. 
To begin with, the year was divided into twelve months, 
each of thirty days, and completed by five days superadded 
{jours complenientaires)^ with an additional day in leap year. 
The old week — old as the time of the Babylonians — was 
suppressed ; each month was divided into three decades of 
ten days each. The day was to be divided into ten parts, 
each of which was to be divided into ten others, so as to 
complete the decimal division of time. But the Convention, 
notwithstanding its enthusiasm for scientific symmetry, hesi- 
tated to take a step which would at one stroke have rendered, 
useless every watch and clock in France. Happily, the latter 
portion of Romme's scheme was set aside and never heard 
of again. It is said, however, that some dials were actually 
made on the new system. 

The Convention had previously decreed that the new era 
should begin on Sept. 22, 1792. This was the first day of 
the year I. of the Republic, and year II. was to begin Jan. i, 
1793. Thus the year I. consisted of only three months and 
nine days. Romme's system, however, altered this arrange- 
ment, and all dates between January and September, 1793, 
which had been year II. of the Republic, were thenceforward 
to be considered as belonging to year I. 

Romme had named his months I., II., III., etc. ; but 
the Convention called in a poet to supplement his work by 
giving them fanciful and significant names. The result of 



EPISODES. 339 

the labors of Fabre d' Eglantine, the poet chosen, was as 
follows : — 

Autumn. 
Vendemiaire . . Vintage month . . . September 22 to October 21. 
Brumaire .... Foggy month .... October 22 to November 20. 
Frimaire .... Hoar-frost month . . November 21 to December 20. 

Winter. 

Nivose Snowy month .... December 21 to January 19. 

Pluviose .... Rainy month .... January 20 to February 18. 
Ventose Windy month .... February 19 to March 20. 

Spring. 

Germinal .... Budding month . . . March 21 to April 19. 

Floreal Flowery month . . . April 20 to May 19. 

Prairial Pasture month .... May 20 to June 18. 

Summer. 
Messidor .... Harvest month . . . June 19 to July 18. 

Thermidor . . . Hot month July 19 to August 17. 

Fructidor .... Fruit month August 18 to September 16. 

To complete the year, five supplemental days were added 
between September 16 and September 22. These days were 
officially called Sansculottides, and were respectively devoted 
to national festivals : I., in honor of genius; II., of labor; 
III., noble actions ; IV., rewards ; and V., opinions. The 
sixth Sansculottide, which was the extra day in leap year, 
was to be the Grand Festival of the Revolution, when every 
one should renew his oath to be free or die. 

The days of the decade were to be Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, 
and so forth till they reached the tenth, Decadi. Lest the 
people should regret the absence of the names of saints, mar- 
tyrs, and confessors to which each day had been dedicated 
in the Gregorian calendar, a fist was drawn up of domestic 
products, implements of agriculture, and domestic animals, 
to take the place of the lost saints and their festivals. Every 
Quintidi was dedicated to some animal, every Decadi to 
some agricultural implement ; the rest were devoted to 
familiar fruits, flowers, and vegetables. For example, take 
the first decade in Vendemiaire : — 



340 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



I. 


Primidi . 


. Grapes. 


VI. 


Sextidi . 


. Balsam. 


II. 


Duodi . . 


. Buckwheat. 


VII. 


Septidi . 


. Carrots. 


III. 


Tridi . . 


. Chestnuts. 


VIII. 


Octidi . . 


. Amaranth, 


IV. 


Quartidi . 


• Colchicum. 


IX. 


Nonidi . 


. Parsley. 


V. 


Quintidi . 


. The horse. 


X. 


Ddcadi . 


. The tub. 



Modern republican historians, apparently ashamed of this 
fantastic folly, pass it over with slight mention ; as a mat- 
ter of fact, it lasted but a very short time, — long enough, 
however, for many republican enthusiasts, when the mania 
for turning Jacques and Pierres into Timoleons, Catos, Bru- 
tuses, and the hke was dying out, called their children after 
the herbs and animals dedicated to the day on which they 
were born. Thus, General Doppet was Pervenche (Peri- 
winkle) Doppet ; General Peyron, Myrte (Myrtle) Peyron ; 
General Lamier, Peuplier (Poplar) Lamier, and so on. But 
the most ardent Jacobin would surely have drawn the line 
at the names of Parsley, Pumpkin, Carrot, Turnip, Onion, 
Asparagus, and Dandelion, which in French slang have all 
an offensive significance. 

The new calendar was, however, never acceptable to the 
French nation, partly because whatever latent piety there was 
in France — and it is now known that there was far more 
than is currently believed — was offended by the ostentatious 
repudiation in it of every trace of religion, but there was an 
even stronger reason for the unpopularity of the new arrange- 
ment. From time immemorial Sunday had been a holiday 
in France. The claims of religion having been acknowledged 
by attendance at mass in the early part of the day, the hours 
remaining had been given up to festivity. The new distribu- 
tion of time gave only three holidays instead of four in every 
month, — holidays that were to be devoted to the " contem- 
plation and commemoration of abstract ideas." 

In the early days of the Revolution Mirabeau had warned 
his colleagues that if they attempted to abolish Christianity 
they would inevitably prepare the way for the annihilation of 
their work and themselves. The event proved the correct- 
ness of this anticipation. The work of completely de-Chris- 



EPISODES. 341 

tianizing the Republic had hardly begun when Robespierre 
and his fellows were sent to the guillotine. 

When fairly in working order, the new calendar, scientifi- 
cally perfect though it was supposed to be, was found full of 
inconveniences by the public ; for instance, there was the 
necessity of dating many things twice over, — once to comply 
with the law of the Republic, and again to be intelligible to 
the outside world. Of course, it might be highly gratifying 
to some to date a legal document " 10 Messidor, An II.," 
but in practice it was rather inconvenient to ransack one's 
memory or one's arithmetic, or refer to an almanac, to find out 
that the rest of the world knew the date only as June 28, 1794. 

Napoleon, who was certainly not wanting in common 
sense, speedily made this discovery, and had not been long 
consul before he resolved on a reform. When, in April, 
1801, freedom of worship was restored, and it ceased to be 
a crime to say one's prayers in public ^ the first step was 
taken by the revival of Sunday. The Decadi was not abol- 
ished, but on Sundays the public offices were closed whether 
they agreed with the Decadi or not, — an arrangement which 
commonly led to the observance of both days. The change 
was universally popular. The churches were thronged on 
Sunday mornings, and the old merry-making of the afternoon 
and evening, never wholly suppressed, was renewed with 
more vigor than ever. When the Empire was firmly estab- 
lished on the 15 Fructidor, An XIII. (Sept. 2, 1805), the 
Senate restored the calendar as it existed before the law 
of October, 1793. The calendar of the Revolution had 
nominally lasted fourteen years, but, as it was not brought 
into operation until Oct. 12, 1793, its actual life was barely 
twelve years. During that limited space of time, however, 
it created a perfectly unequalled amount of trouble and 
inconvenience. It may be doubted whether any human in- 
vention has ever given a thousandth part of the annoyance 
to inoffensive people that has been caused by the scientific 

1 Mr. Griffith says (see page 63) that when he returned to France, 
in April, 1795, after the fall of Robespierre, he found the churches in 
Northern France open and thronged. 



342 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

idea of Romme and his coadjutor Fabre, the poetaster and 
stock-jobber. 

Episode Fourth. — " Which ? " 

One of Frangois Coppde's charming little poems com- 
memorates an action not without many parallels in those 
terrible days when men and women waited in prison for 
death. I translated it, and it was published in " Lippincott's 
Magazine," August, 1884. It is in my Scrapbook, and I 
insert in here: — 

Which? 

Scene. — The Conciergerie. Time. — Thermidor. 

Two hundred prisoners lay there, waiting for 

Judicial butchery. As, in the hall, their feet 

Paced up and down, Death's huge flail seemed to beat 

On the last ears of harvest. Big with fate, 

Clouds lowered over Paris. The coupe-tlte 

Sweated and toiled ; and yet two hundred lay 

Ready, expectant, innocent. — Each day 

A coarse, fierce, cruel, brutal man appeared 

Smoking a pipe, removed it, stroked his beard. 

And, spelling over the day's list, called out 

Name after name, pronounced half wrong, no doubt. 

These were the victims named for that day's cart. 

Each rose at once, calm, ready to depart. 

Without a shudder — without groan or tear. 

Each one embraced his friends, and answered, " Here ! " 

What use to tremble at a daily call ? 

Death stood so near — was so well known to all ! 

Men of low birth and men of lineage high 

Walked with an equal fortitude — to die. 

All brave alike — noble or Girondist. 

It chanced the jailer with the fatal list, 

Reading it out to the sad crowd one day, 

Called out one name distinctly, " Charles Leguay ! " 

Two men at once stepped forward side by side. 

" Present 1 " two voices to his call replied. 

He burst out laughing. 

" I can pick and choose ! " 

One was a bourgeois, old, in square-toed shoes, 
Cold and respectable, with powdered wig ; 
Of some provincial law-court the last twig ; 



EPISODES. 343 

Ex-deputy of the Third Estate, perchance. 
The other, with calm brow and fiery glance, 
Was a young, handsome officer, — still dressed 
In his torn uniform. 

" Ha ! Ha ! I 'm blest 
But this is funny," roared the man who read 
The daily death-list. Then he stopped and said : 

" Have both got the same name, — the two of you ? " 

" We are both ready." 

" No ; that will not do," 
Replied the jailer. " One 's enough for me. 
Explain yourselves. I '11 settle it. Let 's see." 

But both were Charles ; both bore the name Leguay ; 
Each had been sentenced the preceding day. 

The jailer rolled his eyes and scratched his head. 
" The devil take me if I know," he said, 
" Which of the two of you I 'd better pick. 
Here, citizens, you settle it ; but be quick. 
For Sanson don't like waiting for his cart." 

The young man drew the elder man apart. 

Few words sufficed. Two questions, and no more. 

" Married 'I " 

"Ah! yes." 

" How many children ? " 

" Four." 
" Well ! — are you ready ? Speak, — which is to die ? " 
" Marchons ! " the officer replied, — " 't is I ! " 

Episode Fifth. — Dogs in the JRevolutiofi. 

We have seen how poor Brount, the Danish dog of Robes- 
pierre, followed his master's stretcher, when, wounded, he 
was carried into the great Hall of the Tuileries, then appro- 
priated to the Committee of Public Safety, and when men 
gloried in his sufferings, insulted him, pricked him with knives, 
and spat on him, the dog stayed faithful. Probably he was 
separated from his master at the door of the Conciergerie. 
One would like to know what became of him. Did he find 
his way home to the Rue St. Honore? and did the same 
hands that fed, tended, and caressed Robespierre's parrot 
extend the same kindness to his dog? 



344 "^^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

One hundred years after this period -^ M. Loz6, a deputy in 
the French Chamber, whom Parisians call le canicide, re- 
vived against the dogs of Paris the same barbarous ordinances 
directed against them in 1792 by the Commander-in-Chief 
of the National Guard, the celebrated brewer, Santerre, who 
declared war, a merciless war, against all dogs and cats in 
*' the departments of Paris." 

Shortly before, one of the petty states of Germany, that of 
the Prince of CEttingen, had embarked on a similar crusade. 
The Chevalier de Lang tells us in his memoirs that the Coun- 
cil of State in that tiny principality seriously discussed the 
advisabihty of destroying all the dogs in Q^ttingen, As a 
preliminary, officials were to take a census of all dogs, stating 
each dog's name, his appearance, his age, his breed, and what 
use was made of him. History, however, further informs us 
that the prince's scheme fell through. 

In Paris, General Santerre was not more fortunate. It is 
true that the dread of hydrophobia was not then invented. 
Newspapers had not terrified whole neighborhoods by 
accounts of horrible experiences, infernal sufferings, and 
touching cases of inoculation by Pasteur. Santerre had other 
charges to bring against dogs, and even " harmless necessary 
cats." France was menaced by all Europe at that moment ; 
Paris might be considered in a state of siege. The troubles 
arising out of the Revolution and the advance of the allied 
armies might cut off supphes. A vision of frightful famine 
rose before Santerre ; and he, being a patriot of forethought, 
calculated how many dogs there were in Paris, and how many 
cats, all superfluous consumers, and he argued that it would 
be right to get rid of them, that they might not devour food 
that could be eaten by citizens. 

He stated to the Commune that the food consumed by 
cats and dogs would probably sustain fifteen hundred persons ; 
it was equal to the loss of ten sacks of flour a day. The dogs 
and cats were useless mouths, and therefore the Commune 
should destroy them. 

Santerre was a general : he drew up accordingly a plan of 
1 " Supplement Litteraire du Figaro," Nov. 12, 1892. 



EPISODES. 



345 



campaign against the foes whom he denounced. Dogs and 
cats were to be hunted down, arrested, or killed in the streets ; 
but it would be proper also to make sure that the proscribed 
animals did not take refuge in houses, where many old maids 
might try to protect with all the energy of despair, the 
dear companions of their loneHness, their beloved, their 
cherished, their adored poodles and pussy cats. It would 
be necessary for the Convention to decree domicihary visits 
to hunt for cats and dogs. The National Guard ought to be 
called out to assist in the work of their destruction. 

Santerre had unfortunately not foreseen that an almost 
unanimous public opinion would condemn his plan of cam- 
paign as soon as he announced it to the Convention. The 
press protested against it, just as, a hundred years later, it 
protested against the cruel proposals of M. Loze. 

" Dogs and cats," wrote a journalist of the period, " will 
contrive to make good their escape from General Santerre, 
and find refuge in places where he cannot get at them. 
Added to which, these creatures, — born republicans, — who 
sleep with one eye open, and if possible near an unclosed 
door, will at the slightest noise make for the roofs and the 
gutters, and what National Guard is so active as to be able to 
follow them and catch them there ? No, — pardon us for 
saying it, — but animals know better how to preserve their 
freedom than men." 

By degrees public opinion became greatly excited. The 
measures proposed by Santerre were said to smack of the 
Bastille and the Inquisition ; the pets of the people were 
to be excommunicated. Santerre's plan was reactionary, 
worthy of the days of despotism and of dense superstition. 
Prud'homme, in his " Revolutions de Paris," thus vigorously 
denounced it. 

"Alas for such dogs and cats," he cried, "as may dare 
to protest in their own language against the decrees of San- 
terre ! for why should they be refused the right to make their 
humble petition against the cruel injustice and gratuitous 
barbarity which he proposes to exercise against them. They 
will say : ' Brave general, has not your famous expedition into 



346 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

ha. Vendue covered you sufficiently with glory ? ^ Why must 
you try to make yourself more famous at the expense of dogs 
and cats, who have never conspired against any creatures 
save the citizen's domestic enemies ? But gentlemen of the 
Council of the Twelve, of whom you are the right arm, tell 
us that " this canaille consumes each day ten sacks of flour." 
Never was so much noise made about ten sacks of flour, even 
when the mill was grinding it ! Has the great Chabot for- 
gotten the services that cats rendered to him when he was 
shut up in his cell as a Capuchin? Did they not free him 
from the rats who wanted to share that cell with him ? But 
for the cats they might have followed him into the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety. Let Chabot give the order, — cats 
will fight rats still. They say that a beard is a sign of wisdom. 
Ah, M. Chabot, why did you shave off yours? ' " 

Good reasons for not interfering with dogs and cats rained 
down on the authorities. " If you exterminate the cats, mice 
and rats will replace them as consumers. They wiU destroy 
incalculably more grain in the corn market and in the 
bakeries. That loss will be more than General Santerre's 
ten sacks of flour a day." 

Never was it demonstrated with deeper feeling that dogs 
are the friends of man. It was asked if dogs had not rendered 
great services in besieged cities. " Instead of being useless 
consumers of food," pleaded some of the most practical jour- 
nalists, " dogs often increase the food supply in a besieged 
city. In case of extremity may not man turn even his 
brave friends to advantage by sending them to the slaughter- 
house ? As to cats, more than one patriot must have known 
by experience that they make sundry succulent dishes." 

Some economists took pains to prove that for food pur- 
poses dogs and cats were worth more to Paris than the ten 
sacks of flour a day that Santerre protested they consumed. 

" Every Sunday," said the " Revolutions Se Paris," " there 
is at least one pain benit " (one loaf of blessed bread) " in 
every parish in the city. This pain benit, made formerly of 

1 Santerre failed ignominiously in his campaign against the 
Chouans. 



EPISODES. 



347 



the finest wheat flour, and almost Hke cake, is now, it is true, 
nothing more than common bread, but it is bread, and each 
loaf weighs about four pounds. Now at this moment there 
are at least fifty thousand municipalities in France ; if each 
has two parishes, — and that calculation is under the mark, 

— it would make one hundred thousand loaves a week of 
four pounds each : one million pounds of bread each month 
snatched from general consumption, lost to the community. 
... To do away with such 'blessed loaves,' and so save 
thirty millions of pounds of bread, would be a meritorious 
work, worthy of good citizens." 

What answer could be made to such triumphant arguments 
and calculations ? The suppression oi pains benits would be 
certainly an economy that would fully compensate for the 
loss of the ten sacks of flour bemoaned by the patriotic 
general. 

Another patriot, an enemy of luxurious habits, suggested 
a better way of saving flour. " Let men and women give 
up," he cried, "the practice of loading their heads with 
hair-powder. Let us not waste what may hereafter be to us 
of prime necessity ; and let us deserve the benefits of nature 
by the use that we make of them. Let citoyens and citoyennes 
deny themselves hair-powder and keep their cats and dogs. 
Women will not look the less charming, and men will seem 
more manly." 

So many arguments, protestations, calculations, remon- 
strances, and suggested sacrifices could not but outweigh 
the zeal of Santerre. Before long no more was heard of the 
slaughter of domestic animals. 

Thus while cannon thundered on the frontier, and re- 
publican France put forth all her energies to defend her soil ; 
whilst the prisons that had become antechambers to the 
scaffold were crowded with men and women, and the pave- 
ments of the capital were still wet with innocent blood, Paris 

— Great Paris, even in 1792 — had one soft spot in its heart, 
and succeeded in saving from slaughter, denunciation, and 
proscription its amorous tomcats and its curly poodles ! 



BOOK V. 

THE CLERGY OF FRANCE DURING THE REVO- 
LUTION. 

I. Exiles for Conscience' Sake. 
II. A Conventional Bishop. 
III. A Protestant Pastor. 



CHAPTER I. 

EXILES FOR conscience' SAKE.^ 

"DY a decree of the Convention, on the 2d of Novem- 
■*— ^ ber, 1789, church property was confiscated for the 
benefit of the State. Bishops and parish priests were to be 
paid by salaries from the government (as is the case in 
France at the present day). In many instances this gave a 
better stipend to the working clergy than they had enjoyed 
under the old system, while the vast wealth of the higher 
clergy and of the religious houses was treated as public 
property, and fell into the hands of the State. During the 
discussion of this measure it was proposed to go further, and 
remodel the whole constitution and legal status of the clergy 
of France. This was accordingly done, and the measures 
enacted formed what was called La Cofistitution Civile. 

The main articles of this " civil constitution " may be 
briefly stated : " The number of bishoprics was to be re- 
duced, and each diocese was to be conterminous with the 
newly designated department in which it was situated. 
Bishops and clergy were also to be elected in accordance 
with certain democratic forms which were enumerated. But 

^ Taken chiefly from an article published in the " National Re- 
view" and reprinted in " Littell's Living Age," Dec. 8, 1888. 



EXILES FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE. T^^g 

these changes troubled the consciences of men who held 
themselves bound by their vows of consecration and ordina- 
tion to oppose all change. A bishop could not canoni- 
cally abandon his see or any part of it, nor intrude his 
jurisdiction into any part of the see of his neighbor. The 
only power which could solve this difficulty was that of the 
Pope, whose sanction was also needed to enable a priest to 
accept with a clear conscience many other changes included 
in the constitution civile, one clause of which forbade a 
bishop to apply in person to the Pope for consecration, 
though he was permitted to write to him, not as his spiritual 
superior, but only in testimony of the unity of faith and the 
communion he was bound to maintain with him." The eager 
reformers in the Constituent Assembly could not, however, 
wait till this matter should be submitted to the Pope, nor did 
they, indeed, desire his intervention. The oath required of 
all bishops and clergy who desired to retain their sees or 
cures, and to receive salaries from government for their sup- 
port, was brief, but extraordinarily comprehensive : " I swear 
to be faithful to the nation and to the laws." 

To take such an oath, as it were, on the spur of the mo- 
ment and at the bidding of the leaders of the Revolutionary 
party, was an act very impulsive and very daring. The con- 
stitution of the Church might indeed be settled by the adop- 
tion of the constitution civile ; but what man who took the 
oath could know to what he might be binding himself while 
the laws of the country remained unsettled, and the new 
constitution for France, to make which the Constituent 
Assembly had been summoned, was yet unborn? Most men 
have an objection to taking oaths when they are uncertain to 
what they commit themselves. At any moment an unfavor- 
able answer might arrive from the Holy Pontiff, and the clergy 
who had taken the oath would then find themselves placed 
in a difficult position. Thousands refused it, and threw up 
their means of liveHhood. The bishops almost unanimously 
declined to accept the constitution, and the Pope repudiated 
it. Then l)egan the proscription and persecution, not only 
of the priests non-assermente's, but of all who refused to ac- 



350 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

cept the ofifices of religion from those forsworn ecclesiastics, 
whom they looked upon as instruments of the devil. 

The horrors of 1793 drew on apace. Under the Legisla- 
tive Assembly France called itself a republic, but had practi- 
cally no settled form of government. Priests were in those 
days the especial objects of the fury of the population of 
Paris, who called themselves " the people," and fear filled 
the hearts of all those who, in calmer times, would at once 
have put mob rule down. Priests were hunted to death 
in the streets and massacred in prisons ; almost all who 
could get away escaped from France through perils of every 
description. 

Not long after came an open declaration of atheism on 
the part of the new French Republic. To make any open 
profession of belief in God was lese civisme. As one of the 
exiled clergy writes, — 

"The cathedrals and parish churches were stripped of 
their ornaments, and taken possession of by the rabble. . . . 
The statues of our Blessed Lord and of His Mother were 
thrown down and trampled underfoot, while busts of the 
most repulsive and blaspheming Revolutionists were elevated 
and honored in their stead." 

One Revolutionist ostentatiously asserted that though he 
had lived the victim of superstition, he would no longer 
remain its slave. " I know," he exclaimed, " no other wor- 
ship than that of Liberty; no other religion than that of 
Humanity and Country." Jean Baptiste Gobel, the apostate 
Bishop of Paris, declared, " I submit to the omnipotent will 
of the People. There ought to be no national worship at 
all, except that of Liberty and sacred Equality, as the sov- 
ereign people wish it to be. From henceforth therefore I 
renounce and repudiate the Christian Religion." 

As a direct consequence of such blasphemy and national 
impiety, Sunday was abolished ; the church bells were si- 
lenced \ children remained nnbaptized ; marriage, as a sacra- 
ment, or as a Christian rite, was abolished ; the sick received 
no sacred consolation, the dead no religious rites. The 
clergy were everywhere abused, seized, imprisoned, put to 



EXILES FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE. 351 

death. Much that was then done to insult and to put down 
rehgion finds no place in books of history. Private letters 
from eye-witnesses have described what then took place. 
No words, however, can truly depict the horrors of that awful 
Reign of Terror. One direct consequence was that during 
the course of six years, beginning in the autumn of 1792, 
no less than eight thousand of the French clergy — some at 
one period, and others later, including archbishops, bishops, 
dignitaries, parish priests, and ecclesiastical students — 
escaped to England, impoverished, ruined, starving. George 
III. gave up to them the old Royal Palace at Winchester 
(since burned to the ground), where nine hundred of these 
exiled ecclesiastics were housed, and provided with food, 
clothing, and the common necessaries of life. On Michael- 
mas Day (September 29), 1792, a "Committee of Relief" 
was formed in London for the whole country. Among the 
noblemen and gentlemen who gave it their assistance were 
William Wilberforce, the Marquis of Buckingham, the Bish- 
ops of London and Durham, Henry Thornton of Clapham, 
and many others, — all men of influence and position, whose 
names are known even beyond their own country. 

The appeals of the committee were widely circulated, and 
monetary assistance came in at once, for the exiles, in hun- 
dreds of cases, owned nothing whatsoever but the clothes in 
which they stood, a breviary, a pair of spectacles, a skull- 
cap, a snuffbox, a little money in their purses, and a cloak 
or a wrapper. Before Christmas, however, temporary relief 
and food had been provided for nearly four thousand more 
of the exiled clergy, who landed in ports of England on the 
British Channel. In many places the country gentry and 
clergy of the Established Church at once enlisted their neigh- 
bors in aid of the strangers, and with no delay sent liberal 
benevolences in money for their assistance. Several country 
houses in different localities were offered to the committee 
in order to provide immediate shelter for those in need. 

Nothing could exceed the zeal and charity of all the 
members of the committee, whose affairs were largely con- 
ducted by Dr. Dampier, a gentleman of French extraction, 



352 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

afterwards Bishop of Rochester and Ely. Wilberforce and 
Thornton, leaders of the evangelical party, were very active ; 
so were Dr. Walter King, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, 
Dr. Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, and the Bishop of 
Durham. The Archbishop of Canterbury was thought some- 
what tardy in his actions, but afterwards gave good reasons 
for delay. 

For some months the exiles were provided for by private 
munificence; but on Sunday, April 19, 1793, a solemn ser- 
vice for the occasion was appointed, sermons were preached, 
and alms gathered in every church and chapel throughout 
England and Wales by direct command of his Majesty. 
This would have taken place earlier had not the Archbishop 
of Canterbury held it to be more discreet for the prelates of 
the Established Church to follow in this matter, rather than 
seek to lead. Everywhere the subscriptions and gifts were 
large in number, and, considering the poverty then prevailing 
in the country, they were considerable in amount. 

Mrs, Hannah More, then in the height of her popularity, 
addressed a letter, touching in its simplicity and truth, to 
" The Ladies of England," which did much good. Oxford 
and Cambridge, the chapters of some of the cathedrals, 
and the London College of Physicians, contributed very 
considerable sums. 

Later on a grant from government, personally suggested 
by the king and recommended by Mr. Pitt, was made, in 
order to house, clothe, and feed the French exiles. It has 
been calculated that from 1793 to 1795 ^120,000 was 
expended on this work from the public exchequer. 

At the close of 1 793, there were 4,068 priests receiving 
from the English government ;!^ 7,830 a month, and this in 
addition to funds raised in churches or by private benevo- 
lence. The government likewise made itself responsible for 
the support of 375 lay persons at the same period, expending 
for this object;^ 5 60 a month. 

The exiles, scattered through the Southern, Eastern, and 
Midland counties of England, were received with kind- 
ness and favor by the country gentry, and in many houses 



EXILES FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE. 353 

they were welcome guests. " I cannot forget," wrote the 
Rev. Thomas Bowdler, " that these clergymen are men who 
have given up everything which they possessed, and every- 
thing to which they looked forward for their support in this 
world, rather than abandon their duty to God, by taking an 
oath which they conceived would be perjury." 

Meantime the conduct of these exiles showed, according 
to the same authority, "that they were truly sensible of the 
unparalleled kindness they received in England, for which 
they could make no return but by their prayers and good 
conduct." Many nuns during the year 1795, who had 
escaped from France to Holland, came over to England, 
where they were welcomed and supported. 

Once or twice the strong Protestant feeling in England 
was the occasion of trifling difficulties, one of which led to 
an investigation by the Committee, who commissioned a 
prebendary of Winchester, Dr. Henry Sturges, to inquire 
into the controversy. He did so, and on March 23, 1796, 
reported as follows concerning the nine hundred priests 
lodged in the King's House : '•' I confess I have considered 
their general conduct as exemplary in the highest degree. 
I have upon all occasions, and to all persons, given this tes- 
timony, that during their continuance here, which is now 
I think above three years, I have never known any of 
them to be accused of any behavior unbecoming, and have 
heard all of them with whom I am well acquainted express 
in the strongest terms their gratitude for the protection, the 
relief, and the humanity they have experienced from us." 
During the five or six years that the exiles remained in 
England many of them died. Their silent and patiently 
endured sufferings, anxieties, fears, and sorrows bore them 
down. 

In country churchyards in England may be found many 
of their graves, recording their constancy and their virtues ; 
for instance, here is an inscription in a cathedral church in 
Oxfordshire, erected by the warden of New College, to the 
memory of the Archdeacon of Dol : — 

23 



354 '^^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

" To the memory of the Rev. Michael Thoumin Desvalpon, 
aged 62, D.D. and C. L., Archdeacon & Vicar General of 
Dol in Britany; a Man conspicuous for his Deep Knowledge, 
and his Moral Virtues. Exiled since 1792 for his Religion and 
his King; favourably received by the English Nation. Deceased 
at Obery, March 2, 1798, greatly indebted to the family of Mrs. 
Davey, & interred in this Church at the request & expense 
of the Rev. D^ Gauntlett, Warden of New College, Oxford. 
R. I. P." 

A letter dated Oct. 13, 1798, says: "Before those who 
returned home left the town of Dorchester in Oxfordshire, 
they publicly thanked God in the prayers of the Church of 
England on a day set apart, for His mercies and blessings 
to them, and acknowledged the hospitalities of the English 
people. The Vicar preached on the occasion, and a beauti- 
ful and touching sermon it was. The French priests revered 
him greatly. He had buried some of their number in the 
churchyard, when the services were very solemnly done ; 
and they left him memorials of their affection and respect, 
both as a friend and as the clergyman of the Parish." 

The presence of these men in various parts of England, 
their high bearing, sound principles, and rehgious demeanor, 
tended largely to soften British prejudice against the faith of 
their forefathers. The strong language of the Edwardian 
" Homilies," the Armada, Guy Fawkes's conspiracy, and the 
policy of James II., all, more or less, began to be looked 
upon from a somewhat different point of view, " when," as 
Sir Walter Scott most acutely remarked, " so many of the 
British people beheld the blameless lives and dignified pa- 
tience of these exiled clergy." 



CHAPTER 11. 

A CONVENTIONAL BISHOP.^ 

THE best-known men of the Revolution are unsatisfac- 
tory for several reasons. The Girondists were unprac- 
tical pedants, unfit to lead at a time when men of action 
were imperatively called for, and they received the reward of 
their pedantry in the almost complete annihilation of their 
party. Danton, the giant, — according to Carlyle, the states- 
man after the manner of Comte, — was found wanting in 
the critical moment, and perished before the narrower, but 
sterner and more constant, fanaticism of Robespierre. Even 
the " Incorruptible " himself fell from an originally high 
ideal, and allowed the guillotine to flow with the blood of 
men whose chief crime in his eyes was that they were dan- 
gerous rivals. 

Among all these fanatical, weak, vacillating, or deliberately 
criminal men, there was one who showed a consistent moral 
purpose; and who, whether right or wrong, seems to have 
believed what he said, and to-have acted up to his belief, — 
Henri Gr^goire, Bishop of Blois. His earliest biographer 
has said of him, *' that revolutions left him as they found 
him, — a priest and a republican." We first hear of him as 
a public man some years before the meeting of the States- 
General, and he died in the year 1831, just after the Revo- 
lution of July which overthrew the restored monarchy. He 
was an author who published several hundred works on 
various subjects, as well as a priest and a statesman. The 
word vandalism was invented by him a propos of the de- 
struction of works of art by revolutionary fanatics, and his 

1 Abridged from an article in the "Nineteenth Century." Re- 
printed in "Littell's Living Age," Sept. 23, 1893. 



356 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

innocent creation was solemnly discussed in Germany by 
learned patriots, who tried to elucidate the question how far 
the new word was a true description of the Vandals. 

Wlien we first hear of Gregoire he was neither stirring up 
provinces to enthusiasm for universal reform, nor exerting 
his powers of oratory in the Palais Royal ; he was simply 
trying to 

" Do the good that 's nearest 
Tho' it 's dull at whiles, 
Helping, when he meets them, 
Lame dogs over stiles." 

He was collecting books for his parishioners, trying to raise 
them from that degrading depth of ignorance to which they 
had been reduced, and which was to bear terrible fruit not 
long after. 

Gregoire had always been a republican. He tells us him- 
self that while a cwt in Lorraine, before the Revolution, 
he was a member of a society the object of which was to 
bring about the annexation of that province to Switzerland, 
and so to give it the benefit of the institutions of that 
little republic. He also warmly espoused the cause of the 
Jews, oppressed by laws whose barbarity was equalled only 
by their shortsightedness. He wrote a pamphlet in their 
favor, and appealed to the enlightenment and common 
sense of the rulers of Europe. Besides this, he was con- 
nected with the Societe des Amis des Noirs, founded to influ- 
ence public opinion on the wretched condition of slaves in 
the colonies, and was subsequently the first man in any 
country who proposed and carried a law abolishing negro 
slavery. 

Gregoire was sent up to the States-General as a deputy 
from the clergy of his province. He co-operated with the 
leaders of the Tiers Etat, though he did not identify himself 
with them. For instance, he could not understand a Declara- 
tion of Rights unaccompanied by a declaration of duties ; 
and he early saw that the more hot-headed members of the 
liberal party were proceeding in a way which was hkely to 
overthrow society itself. 




GREGOIRE, BISHOP OF BLOIS. 



A CONVENTIONAL BISHOP. 357 

Then came the confiscation of church property, which was 
to assist in paying the enormous debt that was crushing 
France. This measure was supported by Gregoire. Then 
came the proposal to remodel the whole constitution of the 
clergy in France. 

We have already seen that the bishops almost unanimously 
refused the oath to the Constitution Civile, and that the Pope 
repudiated it. Before this, however, Gregoire in his place 
as a deputy had pronounced in favor of it. He seems to have 
seen in it the remedy for crying evils, a means for averting 
the overthrow of religious institutions ; to have thought that 
the Holy Father would not fail to give it his sanction, and 
under the circumstances he accepted the Constitution. 

" I swear," he said solemnly, speaking from the tribune, 
" to be faithful to the nation and the laws." (" Whatever 
laws you may make " being impHed.) 

Most of the sees being abandoned, new bishops had to 
be appointed, and Gregoire was offered the bishopric of 
Blois. He refused at first, but was finally persuaded to 
accept it, to avoid the bad impression that might result from 
the refusal of one who had voted for the new constitutional 
system. His new position involved him in many difficulties, 
for it made it his duty, as bishop under the Constitution, to 
force on his diocese as far as possible pretres assermentes, con- 
trary to the wishes and the consciences of those over whom 
they were appointed to serve. A great number of these clergy 
were men for whom their bishop could have neither sym- 
pathy nor respect. They were unscrupulous time-serving 
men, and many of them married. As a republican, Gregoire 
must have felt the system of episcopal tyranny to which he 
was committed revolting to him. 

After the flight to Varennes, Gregoire objected to restor- 
ing the king, on condition of his accepting the Constitution. 
" He will swear, but will not keep his oath," he said. And 
his prediction was fulfilled a year later. 

It was Gre'goire who, after the events of the loth of August, 
demanded the abolition of royalty. He approved the trial 
of Louis, but as a preliminary proposed the abolition of the 



358 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

punishment of death, hoping that the ex-king might have the 
benefit of the law. He was not present when the vote was 
taken as to the king's death, but with four others he signed 
a paper approving his condemnation, though, before signing 
it, he scratched out the words a mort. All his life after he 
defended himself from the charge of having been a regicide, 
insisting that he had never voted for the death of any man. 

Gregoire took no share in the works and ways of the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety, but he was a member of the Com- 
mittee of Public Instruction, which among other things created 
the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, the Bureau des 
Longitudes, and the Ecole Polytechnique. By it also the 
study of music was organized ; the deaf and blind received 
instruction ; a school of medicine was founded ; and unifor- 
mity of weights and measures was decreed. The absurd 
new calendar was also its work, but not with the consent of 
Gregoire, who opposed Romme's substitution of Decadi for 
Sunday. 

While this practical work was being carried on in Gregoire's 
committee, and while another committee was building up the 
great code of law which still influences the legal system of 
half the countries of Europe, under the misleading name 
of the Code Napoleon, the Convention was engaged in all 
the wicked, wild, and wayward acts which we associate with 
what we call the Reign of Terror. It had also to contend 
with the Commune ; that is, the City Government at the Hotel 
de Ville, which had control over a gigantic organization of 
the secret societies and sections, and was a formidable rival 
to the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. 
From the establishment of the Republic to the death of 
He'bert, the Commune was a continual threat to the existing 
government. It overthrew the Girondins when they were 
masters of a majority in the Assembly, and Robespierre him- 
self was only able to crush it by a temporary alliance with 
Danton. The history of Gregoire is mainly allied with one 
aspect of this struggle. He'bert and Chaumette, the leaders 
of the Commune, were avowed atheists. The Convention 
was inclined to religious toleration, but the leaders of the 



A CONVENTIONAL BISHOP. 359 

Commune were fanatical in their hatred of all religion. For 
a time they got the upper hand ; and the churches in Paris 
and in some of the provinces were profaned by the dis- 
graceful and puerile scenes known as Feasts of Reason. 
Many constitutional priests and Protestant ministers were 
carried away by the movement, and renounced their faith. 
A mummery, which would be laughable, if it were not so 
painful, was gone through in the Convention, where Gobel, 
the Archbishop of Paris, and his chaplains publicly divested 
themselves of their robes of office, and apologized for their 
errors against the pure light of " Reason." 

Shortly after this Gregoire came into the Chamber. He 
was greeted with loud cries and told to go to the tribune. 
" What for ? " he asked. " To renounce your religious charla- 
tanism." " Miserable blasphemers I I was never a charlatan. 
Attached to my religion, I have preached its truths, and I 
will always be faithful to them." 

With these words he ascended the tribune. 

" I am here," he said, " having a very vague notion of 
what has happened in my absence. People speak to 
me of sacrifices for my country. I am accustomed to 
make them. Is it a question of attachment to the 
cause of liberty? I have already given proof of it. Is it 
a question of the revenue joined to my office of bishop? 
I abandon it to you without regret. Is it a question of 
religion? This matter is outside your jurisdiction, and you 
have no right to approach it. I hear some one speak of 
fanaticism or superstition. ... I have always opposed 
them. ... As for me, Catholic by conviction, priest by 
choice, I have been called by the people to be a bishop ; I 
have tried to do some good in my diocese, acting on the 
sacred principles which are dear to me, and which I defy 
you to take from me. I remain a bishop to do some more 
good. I appeal to the principle of liberty of worship." 

Gregoire's firmness on this occasion drew down on him 
the filthy abuse of the atheistical party. His attitude entirely 
destroyed the effect of the apostasy of the weak and timid 
Gobel and his friends, who sank into insignificance before the 



360 THE FRENCH REVOLUTIOAf. 

noble resolution of the Bishop of Blois.^ In the worst of 
times, when even conventional priests hardly dared to appear 
in the streets in lay dress, Gregoire continued publicly to wear 
the clerical habit, and he even presided over the Convention, 
when it came to be his turn, in episcopal costume. Heaven 
and earth were moved to get him to abjure, but he stood firm. 
He was flattered, he vvas threatened ; but he was unmoved. 

No class of people heaped more abuse on him than the 
priests who, for conscience' sake, had been unable to take 
the oath that he had taken. He returned good for evil, and 
boldly advocated the cause of religious liberty. By his per- 
sonal efforts, at a time when men were wiUing to suspect him 
on the least opportunity, he obtained the freedom of some 
non-juring priests, who were herded together in confinement 
at Rochefort, and were becoming decimated by disease 
brought on by the unhealthy conditions of their prison. Gre- 
goire got no thanks for this ; he did not ask for them. He 
had done his duty, and that was enough. 

The Revolution drew to a close. The Directory was no 
doubt an attempt at a republican dictatorship, but the idea 
which it represented was for the moment out of place. The 
nation only waited for the coming of a master, and it had 
not to wait long. 

Under the Directory Gre'goire withdrew to his diocese. 
He busied himself in its administration and in literary work, 
and did not re-enter public life until the Consulate was estab- 
lished, when he became a senator under the new regime. In 
this position he constantly opposed every advance of Napo- 
leon. Sometimes he was supported by other republicans ; 
sometimes he stood alone. On the question of giving Napo- 
leon the hereditary title of emperor, Gregoire voted in oppo- 
sition, with only four others, and his was the one black ball 
that opposed the establishment of the new nobility. 

He disapproved the Concordat signed by the Pope and 
Napoleon ; but when it was signed he submitted to it. He 
refused, however, to make the declaration imposed on con- 
stitutional bishops as a condition of their retaining their sees. 
^ See page 64. 



A CONVENTIONAL BISHOP. 36 1 

He resigned his bishopric of Blois, and wrote a farewell letter 
to the faithful in his diocese, exhorting them to obey in all 
things their new ecclesiastical superior. 

He was a consistent opponent of Napoleon's government, 
but was left unmolested in his retirement, though pursued by 
calumny from the most opposite quarters. Under the Bour- 
bons his case was worse. The returned emigres called him 
an •■ apostate," and men who .had been republicans while re- 
publicanism was the order of the day hated a man whose 
life was a continual protest against their own inconsistency. 

Gre'goire became old and feeble, but he lived until his 
heart was once more gladdened for a moment by the revolu- 
tion of 1830. He warned his fellow-countrymen, however, 
against the re-establishment of monarchy. This was the last 
public act of his life. 

On his death-bed he sent for his parish priest. The priest 
communicated with the archbishop, who wrote to Gr^goire 
exhorting him to make a retraction, and told the priest to 
exact it before giving him the last sacraments. Gre'goire re- 
fused, on the ground that he had nothing which his conscience 
compelled him to retract. The priest left him ; and he was 
finally driven to seek the assistance of a priest who had al- 
ways been opposed to him, but in whose Christian charity he 
felt he could confide. He made his confession, received the 
last offices of the Church, and prepared to meet his Creator. 
He died on the 28th of May, 1831. at the age of eighty-one. 
In his will it was found that he had left four thousand francs 
to found an annual mass for his calumniators and enemies, 
dead or living. 

He died as he had lived, a Catholic and a republican. He 
had his faults. Some of his speeches breathe a tone of fa- 
natical republicanism, unsuited to our more mature and scien- 
tific point of view. But in this he was the child of his period. 
If sometimes he was carried away by the swift stream of revo- 
lutionary opinion, there were moments when he rose to an 
almost superhuman height, as when he stood alone in the 
tribune of the National Convention and fearlessly confessed 
Almighty God. 



CHAPTER III. 

A PROTESTAN-T PASTOR.^ 

TEAN PAUL RABAUT, called Saint- E'tienne, was born in 
J 1743, the eldest son of the "Desert Pastor," Paul 
Rabaut, almost the last survivor of the heroic age of Hugue- 
notism. The " Desert " was the wild region of Languedoc 
and the Cevennes, where Huguenotism lingered after it had 
been crushed out of the towns. Every pastor adopted for 
safety a 7wm de Desert ; an alias, by which he was known 
among the faithful. Paul Rabaut had at least a dozen 
" desert names " of his own, and had given to his three sons 
in their childhood those of Saint-Etienne, Pommier, and 
Dupuis. To call them by their father's name would have 
been to expose them as a prey to the pious kidnappers, 
to whom the law afforded every facility for taking a child 
out of the control of Huguenot parents. In 1743, it was 
more than a half a century since Louis XIV. had turned his 
"booted apostles" loose upon the Huguenots; but the 
persecution, though not in its first heat, was still far from 
being over. Paul Rabaut was a fugitive, hiding in caves 
and thickets ; attempts were made to seize his wife as a 
hostage, and during a hasty flight her child was born in a 
barn or stable. Throughout his childhood Jean Paul never 
knew till supper-time where he would sleep ; his father 
regulated the march, and the children were lodged with the 
faithful in turn. At the age of eleven he was awaked one 
morning by a troop of grenadiers demanding entrance to a 
house where his mother had taken refuge. The next year 
we find him safe in Geneva, boarding with a refugee pastor, 
and later on transferred to the Lausanne College which 
1 "Gentleman's Magazine," 1890. 




JEAN PAUL RABAUT. 



A PROTESTANT PASTOR. 363 

Antoine Court, the "Restorer of the Huguenot Church," 
had founded for training Desert pastors. Jean Paul's incli- 
nation seems to have been towards the bar, but as the 
professions in France were closed to Huguenots, he resigned 
himself to entering the ministry. At the age of nineteen he 
returned to France as a proposant ; that is, a probationary 
minister. On crossing the border he was met by the 
news of the capture and hanging of the pastor Rochette, 
1762, and with a request that he would preach his funeral 
sermon. 

" If we knew Rabaut Saint-Etienne's early life," says his 
friend Boissy d'Anglas, " we should find it as full of perils 
and heroism as that of any Catholic priest under the Terror ; " 
the records that have come down to us are of more peaceful 
days. For even then the tide was turning. The " affaire 
Calas " (only a month later than that of Rochette) enlisted 
Voltaire's advocacy ; ^ and Voltaire ruled the public mind 
in France. By steps too many to relate, the Protestants of 
France, like the Roman Catholics of England, reached the 
stage of.tacit toleration. Their wrongs, as represented in a 
play acted in 1767 before the king, drew tears from a court 
audience. Their meetings for worship in the stone quarries 
at Nimes, where they sat under sunshades and on camp- 
stools, were winked at by the military authorities, their peti- 
tions to provincial governors and parliaments were actually 
read, and men in high places intimated that it was time to 
act on them. 

Meantime Rabaut Saint-Etienne, rejoicing in the new turn 
things were taking in 1768, made a love-match, and devel- 
oped into a preacher of local fame, whose sermons on the 
marriage and coronation of Louis XVI. were commended 
even by Catholics, and whom the Duke of Gloucester, 
brother of George III., when passing through Languedoc, 
came in state to hear. Rabaut about this time drew up a 
petition for the Huguenot galley-slaves, and subsequently 

i For a history of the " affaire Calas," the dreadful prosecution 
of a respectable Protestant tradesman and his family for an imaginary 
crime, see an article, republished in " Littell's Living Age," Vol. 59. 



364 ^-^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

published a sort of autobiographical novel in London, on 
the trials of a pastor in the Cevennes. 

Next Rabaut wrote a pamphlet called " Homage to the 
Memory of the late Bishop of Nimes," saying in its introduc- 
tion that " it is lawful to praise those when dead whom we 
would not hav.e praised when living." 

The tolerance and moderation of a Huguenot of that age 
(of which Rabaut furnished twenty examples) are the more to 
be admired when we consider what was still his legal 
position, — illegitimated, excluded from the professions, and 
in strict law liable to death on the gallows. 

Such was the state of things in France when Lafayette, 
fresh from America, and with his head full of liberty and 
equal justice, visited Nimes, and introduced himself to the 
Rabaut household. " The hero of two worlds pressed in 
his arms the venerable Desert pastor," and urged the pas- 
tor's eldest son to come to Paris, and plead the Protestant 
cause with the king's new ministers. Rabaut Saint-Etienne 
responded eagerly ; his flock subscribed to pay for his 
journey, — not without qualms as to the dangers of lettres de 
cachet and kidnappers on the road, — but the Paris world 
gave a warm reception to the protige of its hero. Counts 
and marquises were amazed to find in this '' child of the 
Desert " a civilized man, with powdered hair and a starched 
neckcloth, a classical schoLar, a philosopher, well read in the 
works of the Encyclopedists, and of Gibbon and Bacon, and 
even an elegant poet, who turned odes easily, and had on hand, 
it was whispered, an epic poem on Charles Martel. The 
cause he advocated was enthusiastically adopted. Ministers, 
academicians, and even a bishop showed themselves well-dis- 
posed to the Protestants, and in the autumn of 17S7 an edict 
was passed, granting to "non-Catholics " the right to live in 
France, and there exercise a profession or trade, to contract 
civil marriages, and register their births and burials. The 
king proposed the measure, and after some opposition the 
Parliament of Paris registered it. " You will easily judge," 
wrote Lafayette to Washington, "with what pleasure I pre- 
sented last Sunday at a ministerial table the first Protestant 



A PROTESTANT PASTOR. 365 

ecclesiastic who has been seen at Versailles since the Revo- 
cation of 16S5." 

The Protestants, with joyful and grateful hearts, flocked to 
insure their legal status ; in some cases old men came to 
register the births of three generations, — father, child, and 
grandchild. These boons were granted to Protestants 
under the old regime, and there is no knowing, say some, 
what further reforms the king might have made if his subjects 
would have left him free to make them. 

Rabaut adorned his room with a portrait of Lafayette, 
inscribed in large gold letters, "My Hero," and returned 
to Languedoc (March, 1788) to preach a sermon on "Ren- 
der unto Caesar, etc.," which was remembered by hearers 
who were living in 1850. He was now the greatest man in 
Nimes, and that not only with his own flock. He had 
made a name among the savants ; his new book, on primitive 
Greek history, had been commended by the learned Bailly, 
and he had also added one to the twenty-five hundred and 
odd pamphlets in circulation, concerning the coming States- 
General. The Tiers Etat of Nimes elected him first of its 
eight deputies to that Assembly ; from that day his clerical 
life was over, and his political hfe began. 

Rabaut took part in drawing up the Declaration of 
Rights, — so soon to be set at nought in every particular. 
Mainly by his influence liberty of worship was made an 
especial clause in the Declaration. Only civil rights had 
been granted to non-Catholics before. The Protestants of 
Paris, who had hitherto met in a wine-merchant's parlor,-^ 
now removed to the church of St. Louis of the Louvre, and 
all the town marvelled to see heretics walk unmolested to 
their preche, at a time when priests who had not taken the 
oath {papistes they were called in the language of the day) 
could not appear in the streets without danger and insult. 

In March, 1 790, Rabaut was chosen President of the As- 
sembly for one fortnight, as was the custom. " How this 

1 See " The Dean of Killerine," a novel by the Abbe Prevost 
(1735), translated by me, and republished in "Littell's Living Age," 
1894. — E. W. L. 



366 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

would astonish Louis XIV. ! " he said, when acknowledging 
the honor ; and to his father he wrote : " The President of 
the National Assembly is at your feet." 

We pass over events already touched upon in 1790, 1791, 
and early in 1792. In the closing months of that year all 
lesser matters were swallowed up in the great question 
whether the king should or should not be brought to trial 
before the Convention ; and against this, Rabaut set him- 
self far too strongly for prudence. His most celebrated 
speech — and that which ruined him — was made in a vain 
endeavor to avert the trial, or at least to have it conducted 
with legal forms and before a properly appointed tribunal. 
He spoke thus on the subject in the Assembly : — 

" You say that it is no new thing for you to pronounce 
judgment. I reply that that is just what I complain of. I, 
for one, am sick of my share of despotism. I am fatigued, 
harassed, tormented by the despotism in which I take 
part ; and I sigh for the moment when a national tribunal 
shall relieve me of the form and countenance of a tyrant. 
\_Murmurs!\ . . . History blames the English, not that they 
judged their king, but that the Commons, secretly pushed 
forward by Cromwell \_jRedoubled miirmtirs, for every one 
kjiew that the Cromwell pointed at was Robespierre.'] had 
usurped the right of judging ; that they set at nought the 
legal forms ; that they declared themselves exponents of 
the will of a people whom they had never consulted. And 
this very people — the people of London — who were said 
to have so pressed for the death of the king were the first 
to curse his judges and to bow before his successor. The 
City of London feasted the restored Charles II. ; the people 
displayed riotous joy and crowded round the scaffolds of 
these very judges sacrificed by Charles to the shade of his 
father. People of Paris, Parliament of France, have you 
understood me? . . . 

" Louis dead will be more dangerous than Louis living," 
he urged for the last time, after giving his vote for the mild 
sentence of: "Detention during the war, and banishment 
afterwards." " I would fain see my countrymen not savage 



A PROTESTANT PASTOR. 367 

tigers, but disdainful lions ! " He had tried to enlist his 
friends on the side of mercy, but it would appear with small 
success, since he could not persuade his own brother to 
anything more decided than: "Death with respite," — a 
miserable subterfuge. Out of seven Protestant pastors in 
the Assembly four were regicides, and but one voted with 
Rabaut. 

Rabaut's fortunes were now past mending. His efforts to 
save the king had cost him his place on the " Moniteur," and 
that paper was anxious to disclaim all connection with one 
who, as Camille Desmoulins asserted, had been "charged to 
poison public opinion." 

The tragedy of the Girondins was now beginning, and 
Rabaut had to play his part as one of the fated victims. It 
was remembered that he had been the protege of Lafayette, — 
Lafayette, who was now outlawed and a fugitive, — that he 
was friendly to the equally abhorred Bailly, that he had 
been " a creature of Roland," and (even this is gravely noted 
in Robespierre's papers) that in old days at Nimes, he had 
got up a subscription for a book by one Rousin, who had 
lately come out with a drama of Fayettist tendencies. Jaco- 
bin orators, once so ready to play off Protestant against 
Catholic, now contemptuously hinted that one kind of priest 
was as bad as another. But the crowning sin charged upon 
poor Rabaut was that of making faces, with set purpose to 
put Robespierre out of countenance during one of his 
best speeches. 

Rabaut's fall dates actually from May 18, 1793, the be- 
ginning of a week of riot and confusion in the Assembly. 
Rabaut was chairman of a Committee of Twelve charged to 
make up a report on the situation. This report he presented 
on the last day of May, but as it was understood that it would 
demand the expulsion of certain deputies in the Assembly, 
and recommend, in short, a purgation pridieime — that is, 
Pride's Purge — of the Assembly, he was never suffered to 
read it. Rabaut, with five of his colleagues, had spent the pre- 
vious night, two in a bed, in a house in an obscure faubourg, 
with doors barred and pistols and swords in readiness, in case 



368 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

of attack. At three in the morning they were roused by the 
tocsin calling out the Sections. We should hke to believe 
the story that Rabaut, once more acting in his old capacity 
as pastor, knelt and prayed aloud for France and for the 
party of law and order, and by his Christian confidence kept 
up the hearts of his more skeptical companions ; but for 
want of contemporary evidence, we fear we must set down 
the story as one of Lamartine's little embellishments. 

After persistent but vain efforts to read his report the next 
day to the Assembly, Rabaut shouted : " You refuse to hear 
it, because you know it would accuse you." At this there 
arose " an indescribable tumult," in the midst of which a 
kindly doorkeeper helped Rabaut to slip out, and the rest 
of the Girondins seem to have followed his example. 

On June 2, Rabaut and twenty of his Girondin colleagues 
were dining with the deputy Meillan, who went to and fro, 
keeping them informed of what was taking place in Paris, 
when Rabaut's brother, Pommier, rushed in, crying : " Sam>e 
qui pent ! Sauve qui peut /" The danger was imminent; 
the Girondins embraced each other, and did as he advised. 

Rabaut, having secured his papers, sought refuge in the 
house of Miss Helen Maria Williams, and there gave him- 
self up to despair, less for the almost certain loss of his own 
life than for that of his country's liberty. His name appeared 
on the list of deputies " who could not be placed under 
arrest as not being in their domicile." And he was de- 
nounced as " that tartuffe Rabaut." 

From the house of Miss Williams, Rabaut went to that of 
a Nimes Protestant at Versailles. Thence he contrived to 
send his rejected report to Nimes, where it was printed, to 
the intense indignation of the Assembly which it accused. 
A southern " Federation of seventy-three respectable cities " 
was formed in the south of France to oppose the domination 
of the capital, and an enthusiastic reception was given to 
Rabaut ; but the next day the Sectional Assembly at Nimes 
retracted all its measures, and declared itself " no longer in 
a state of resistance to oppression." 

Rabaut's supporters fled to Switzerland, and he himself got 



A PROTESTANT PASTOR. 369 

back to Paris ; there a Catholic from Nimes, M. Etienne 
Peyssac, or De Peyssac, a clerk in the government service, 
remembering old obligations to Rabaut pere, received into 
his house the persecuted man and his brother. Here the 
two walled off with their own hands the end of their host's 
bedroom for a secret chamber, employing a skilled carpenter 
to make the door, which was concealed by a book-case placed 
against it, and here they lay concealed over four months, 
letting their beards grow, and employing themselves in writ- 
ing historical letters in continuation of their " Pieces de la 
Revolution." 

Meantime the trial of the Girondins took place. The ac- 
cused were, of course, all found guilty, and the twenty-one 
who were actually in the hands of the Revolutionary Tribu- 
nal were duly sent to the guillotine. 

All through November, 1793, while the guillotine was hard 
at work shearing off heads (Philippe Egalite's and Madame 
Roland's amongst others), it was the fashion for apostate 
Catholic priests publicly to embrace apostate Protestant pas- 
tors, and Protestant chalices lay heaped with Catholic pyxes 
and monstrances before the altar of the Goddess of Reason, 
ready for the melting pot. Many thought that had Rabaut 
been at large during those days of grotesque horror, while he 
lay safe in his hiding-place. Bishop Gregoire would not have 
stood alone in his courageous protest against apostasy. 

The dde of godless fanaticism was just beginning to turn, 
and Robespierre, through jealousy of Hebert, was appearing 
almost as the champion of a religious revival, when the 
end to Rabaut came. On Dec. 4, 1793, Amar, who had 
acted as public accuser in the trial of the Girondins, an- 
nounced to the Assembly the capture of the two Protestant 
brothers. 

Who betrayed their hiding-place? It was never surely 
known. Some said a maidservant ; some said the carpenter 
who had made their door, either through inadvertence or 
through fear. One story says that, having had a job given 
him by De Peyssac in the Chamber of the Committee of 
Public Safety, he overheard such threats against the pro- 

24 



370 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

scribed and those who concealed them, that for his own 
safety's sake he gave information. Another account says 
that Fabre d'Eglantine, "powerful, but trembling," thought 
it might be well to have a secret chamber ready for himself 
in case of a reverse of fortune, and sounded the carpenter, 
the best of his trade in Paris. The man understood at once 
what he wanted. " Oh, yes, citizen ! I made a place like 
that at the Citizen Peyssac's, that I defy any one to find out." 
Fabre, says the story, went straight and gave information to 
the Committee of Pubhc Safety. 

Another version tells us that the capture was due to A mar 
himself. He had been an old friend of Rabaut's, and meet- 
ing Madame Rabaut in the street, pressed her to urge her 
husband to take refuge in his house. The Rabauts were 
glad to relieve Peyssac and his family of charge and danger ; 
an hour of the night was appointed for the removal ; Amar 
entered the house of Peyssac at the head of a party of 
guards, and the brothers were arrested. 

Rabaut was an outlaw hors la lot, and no trial was needed. 

There was, of course, no mercy for a man who had in- 
curred the personal hatred of Robespierre ; but one of the 
few who lived to tell what Fouquier-Tinville's tribunal was 
like, has told us something of his last moments. 

"I was much impressed," says this eye-witness, "with Ra- 
baut de Saint-Etienne. He was condemned the same day that 
I was interrogated. My hands were bound as a sign of con- 
demnation, and I was led out to wait for the cart. Rabaut 
came next. He exclaimed, ' I know it now, this tribunal of 
blood, these judges, these hangmen, who stain with blood 
the Republic' ' Hold thy tongue ! ' cried a gendarme, ' do 
as this young man does who is condemned like thee, and 
takes it quietly.' I was about to protest, but Rabaut fore- 
stalled me. ' Eh., mon afni! ' he said, ' soon they will not 
trouble to hear the accused. We are in the hands of mur- 
derers.' I was dragged to the wicket. They were about to 
cut my hair for the guillotine. Rabaut joined his voice to 
mine, to plead that I was not yet condemned. A turnkey 
confirmed the fact, and I was removed. Rabaut kissed me. 



A PROTESTANT PASTOR. 37 1 

I see yet his eyes gleam with horror at this new kind of 
crime, and he forgot that which was being committed against 
laimself, in his interest for me." 

Rabaut asked leave to bid farewell to his brother, but 
learning" that this would involve sending to Fouquier-Tinville 
for an order, he declined to keep the cart waiting, saying, 
" After all, it would but give needless pain to my brother. 
Let us set out." 

In his pastoral days Rabaut was noted for being very com- 
forting to the dying. We trust that he was now able to 
comfort Kersaint, his fellow-sufferer. Both victims died 
firmly, though in their case, as in that of many others, to the 
bitterness of death was added the bitterness of public hate 
and ridicule. Some laughed at Rabaut's unshaven beard, 
and the mirth had not ended when the knife fell. Death to 
such a man must have been hard to bear, — harder than for 
a royalist, who might glory in it as martyrdom. But a Giron- 
din had so loved the Republic ! 

Peyssac and his wife were guillotined for having sheltered 
one who was hors la loi. Madame Rabaut at Nimes learned 
of her husband's death through a news-seller in the street, 
and, maddened by grief, she shot herself, sitting on the edge 
of a well, so that drowning completed the work of the pistok 

Old Paul Rabaut, who had wandered thirty years with a 
price upon his head, and had never been taken, was now 
pounced upon, partly as being the father of an emigre, and 
partly as being, if not a priest, next door to one. Too infirm 
to walk, he was set upon an ass, and led through a shouting 
crowd to the citadel at Nimes, built by Louis XIV. to over- 
awe the Protestants. Without hope of life, and without desire 
to live, he applied himself to console his fellow-captives. The 
fall of Robespierre released him, but he died in three months, 
and was buried in his own cellar, Christian burial being still 
prohibited. 

Rabaut-Pommier lay long months in the Conciergerie, a 
prey to all the ailments brought on by damp. He was at 
last recalled to the Convention with the surviving Girondins, 
but finally subsided into a pastor of the Reformed Church at 



372 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Paris, and died peacefully in 1820. Two of his printed 
sermons are preserved. One is entitled " Napoleon the 
Deliverer ; " the other is in praise of the " Restoration of the 
Bourbons." Rabaut-Dupuis, the youngest of the three 
brothers, met his death in 1808, when snatching a child from 
the hoofs of a runaway horse. The child lived to be made 
Chef de division of the prefecture of the Gard in 1853, and 
bore testimony in a local newspaper to Rabaut-Dupuis's 
heroism and self-devotion. 



BOOK VI. 

LAFAYETTE AND HIS FAMILY. 

I. Lafayette's Career. 
II. Deaths of the Ladies of Madame de Lafayette's Family. 



CHAPTER I. 

Lafayette's career.^ 

GILBERT MOTIER, Marquis de Lafayette, was de- 
scended from one of the noblest and wealthiest families 
of France. He was born at Chavaniac, Sept. 6, 1 75 7. He 
was a principal actor in four great revolutions which changed 
the political face of the world. In his boyhood he was one 
of Marie Antoinette's court pages ; at fifteen he was an officer 
in the king's Mousquetaires. At sixteen he married the 
young granddaughter of the Marechal Due de Noailles. All 
the ladies of this family who could be seized upon by the 
Committee of Pubhc Safety in 1793, were guillotined for their 
connection with Lafayette, whose unpopularity was excessive 
throughout France at that period. The touching narrative of 
their last moments will be found in the succeeding chapter. 
It had evidently been communicated some years before its 
publication to Mr. Lever, the Irish novelist, who incorporated 
it into his delightful narrative of Maurice Tiernay. 

Republicanism was in the air that Lafayette breathed at 
the period of his marriage. He was an enthusiast for " liberty." 

1 Much of this chapter is taken from an account given to me by 
Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, who also published it in an article in 
the " North American Review." It was given to him by Colonel Huger 
(pronounced Ujee), and by Lafayette in 1825, so that it is entirely 
authentic as to the abortive attempt of evasion at Olmutz. 



374 ^-^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

He heard of the troubles in America, and rich, aristocratic, 
and but newly married, he resolved to forsake everything to 
assist the cause of freedom. The American agents in Paris 
being too poor to send him to America, he fitted out a vessel 
at his own expense, and landed not far from Charleston, at 
one of the darkest moments of our Revolutionary struggle. 

He disarmed the prejudice of Congress against foreigners 
by requesting permission to serve at his own expense, and as 
a volunteer. Congress, however, gave him rank as a major- 
general. 

He became the aide-de-camp, intimate friend, and disciple 
of General Washington. " Heart and soul he threw himself 
into the struggle ; seven years of his life were devoted to the 
service of America, bravely fighting her battles as a soldier, 
and working for her unceasingly as a diplomatist, to secure 
her recognition by the courts of Europe. Twice during those 
seven years he revisited France, to plead the cause of liberty 
with King Louis ; and his sovereign yielded to his prayers, 
and gave the republicans in revolt six thousand troops, and 
large supplies of clothing, arms, and munitions of war, with 
which to help in the great struggle." 

That struggle over, Lafayette returned to Paris, and became 
the hero of the day. " His bust, presented by the State of 
Virginia, was enshrined, with honors, in the Hotel de Ville. 
He was crowned with wreaths, cheered by the multitude, 
and petted by the court. The people regarded him as the 
champion of liberty, the king as the upholder of the glory of 
the arms, and of the influence of France." 

For some years after his return to his own country Lafay- 
ette busied himself in promoting reforms. He advocated the 
recognition of the civil rights of Jews and Protestants, and 
emancipation of the blacks in the colonies. 

When the Assembly of the Notables met in 1 788, Lafayette 
made the first motion. '' I demand," he said, " the suppres- 
sion of lettres de cachet, universal toleration, and the con- 
vocation of the States-General." By orders of electors 
assembled at the Hotel de Ville, " he organized the Na- 
tional Guard (an organization rarely on the side of law and 




LAFAYETTE. 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. 375 

order), and was made its commander-in-chief. He also, 
when the Revolutionary party assumed the colors of the 
city of Paris, added the royal white to red and blue, and 
prophesied that the tri-color should travel round the 
world." 

How he saved the royal family from utter destruction, — 
after, however, having exposed them at Versailles to attack, 
— is a well known matter of history. As the Revolution 
advanced his popularity declined. Deeply mortified at the 
failure of his cherished hopes, he resigned his offices and went 
back to a private station. 

When war with Austria and Prussia was declared, however, 
he came forward to defend the sacred soil of his country. 
He visited Paris while in high military command to make 
protest against the rising horrors under the Revolutionary 
government. He offered Louis XVI. protection as a consti- 
tutional king, if he would escape to his army. But the king, 
mistrusting Lafayette, shilly-shallied, and at last declined. 
When the royal family was arrested on its way to the 
frontier to join the more royalist division of the French 
army commanded by Bouille, public indignation against 
Lafayette rose to its height, for he was supposed to have 
connived at the escape of the king. Commissioners were 
sent to his camp to inquire into the conduct of the general. 
He arrested them, and then, since to have faced wild beasts 
would have been madness, he, attended by a small band of 
friends, left the camp on horseback. Towards night they 
came on the advanced guard of the Austrian army. With- 
out declaring their names, they asked permission, as deserters 
from the French army, to pass through the lines into Holland. 
Unfortunately, on the frontier of the Grand Duchy of Luxem- 
bourg, Lafayette was recognized by one of the hnigre nobles. 
The whole party were instantly arrested. 

They were consigned to the custody of Prussia, and dis- 
gracefully and barbarously she treated them. Loaded with 
chains they were conveyed in a cart to Magdeburg, lodged, 
on their way there, in common jails, and insulted by the 
peasantry. At Magdeburg they were confined for a year in 



3/6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

subterranean dungeons ; then Lafayette and two others 
were moved to Moravia, part of the Austrian dominions. 
Finally, they were placed in separate cells at Olmutz, — cells 
which they were told that they would never leave ; that they 
would never again hear a human voice ; that their very 
names would never again be mentioned in their presence ; 
that they would only be known by the numbers on their 
doors. A strong guard was placed on duty. The sentries 
had orders, on pain of a hundred lashes, to speak no word to 
the prisoners, and to shoot them dead if they tried to escape. 
Their furniture was a bed of rotten straw, a chair, and a table. 
Every precaution was taken ; every severity employed. When 
it rained, water ran through the unglazed loop-holes of their 
dungeons, wetting them to the skin. 

It is not surprising that Lafayette's health failed in such 
an imprisonment. In consequence of his desertion his 
estates in France had been confiscated, his wife's relations 
had been guillotined, and she herself thrown into prison. 

In 1 794, after the fall of Robespierre, Lally-Tollendal ex- 
erted himself to procure means of escape for one to whose 
services the cause of republicanism was so much indebted. 
Madame de Lafayette had addressed piteous appeals to 
Washington. It has always surprised me that no direct 
action on Lafayette's behalf seems to have been taken by 
the American government. It shows, however, how mar- 
vellous has been the change in the position of the United 
States within the last hundred years. Stimulated by Lally- 
Tollendal, Dr. Erick Bollmann, a Hanoverian, undertook the 
enterprise. He had first to find out the place of Lafayette's 
imprisonment, which had been kept as much a secret as that 
of Cceur de Lion. 

With great difficulty he ascertained, after nearly a year's 
search, that a party of French prisoners at Magdeburg had 
been transferred to an Austrian escort, which had taken the 
road towards Olmutz in Moravia. He established himself at 
Olmutz as a traveller in search of health, and there ascer- 
tained that several state prisoners were kept in the citadel, 
with a degree of caution and mystery not unlike that used 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. ^'J'J 

with the Man in the Iron Mask. He did not doubt that 
Lafayette must be one of them, and making himself profes- 
sionally acquainted with the military surgeon of the post, he 
obtained leave to send some books to his prisoner, Lafay- 
ette's failing health having led to some relaxation of severity. 
He had been allowed light and air, the use of pen and ink, 
and an occasional drive through the forest of the neighbor- 
hood, accompanied by an officer and an escort. 

Dr. Bollmann, through the surgeon, sent him some books 
with a polite note, hoping they might prove interesting. La- 
fayette, from the tone of the note, suspected it might mean 
more than it said, and, examining the books with care, dis- 
covered marks by which he could carry on a correspondence 
when returning them to their owner. A plan of escape hav- 
ing been devised. Dr. Bollmann left Olmutz, and went for a 
time to Vienna. There he communicated his project to Fran- 
cis Key Huger, who then chanced to be in Austria. Colonel 
Huger was a member of one of the Huguenot families who, 
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settled in 
South Carolina. His father was a warm personal friend of 
Lafayette in the days of the Revolutionary War. He entered 
with enthusiasm into Dr. Bollmann's plot, and together they 
returned to Olmutz, in the autumn of 1795. 

On a certain morning when Lafayette, with an officer 
beside him and a guard upon the driving seat, was taken 
out to drive in the forest, Bollmann and Huger, well mounted, 
followed the carriage. Their preparations had been made. 
A carriage was in readiness at Hoff, a small town on the 
frontier. Each carried a pistol, but no other weapon, think- 
ing themselves not justified in committing murder in their 
attempt. About three miles from the citadel the carriage 
left the high-road, and passing through a less frequented 
country, Lafayette was permitted to get out and walk, guarded 
only by the officer. This was the moment seized by Dr. 
Bollmann and Huger. They rode up at once. Huger dis- 
mounted. " Seize this horse," he cried to Lafayette in Eng- 
lish, " and you are free ! " The officer at this drew his 
sword. Lafayette grappled him. The flash of the sword 



3/8 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

frightened the horse, which broke suddenly away. In a 
moment Lafayette was mounted on the other horse, Huger 
calhng out to him in EngHsh, "Take the road to .Hoff!" 
Lafayette mistook him, and thought he said, '•'■ Be off! " 
He delayed a moment to see if he could assist his rescuers, 
now striving to capture their loose horse, then went on, then 
rode back again and asked once more if he could be of any 
service, and finally, urged anew, galloped slowly away. 

Meantime the horse was caught, and Huger jumped up 
behind Bollmann. But the animal had not been trained, like 
the other horse, to carry double. It had been intended for 
Lafayette. They had not gone far when it became restive, 
plunged, and threw both of them, injuring Bollmann's knee. 
Again Huger played the hero, remounted his friend, and 
trusted to his own fleetness. But he was soon captured. 
Dr. Bollmann easily arrived at Hoff, but there was no La- 
fayette there. He lingered around till the next night, when 
he was arrested and carried back to Olmutz. Lafayette, 
who had taken a wrong road, rode on and on till his horse 
was exhausted ; then he was taken up as a suspicious per- 
son, and returned to Olmutz the following day. 

All three were brought back separately to the citadel, and 
neither was permitted to know anything of the others' fate. 
Colonel Huger was chained to the floor in a small vaulted 
dungeon, without light, and no food but bread and water. 
Every six hours the guard entered with a lamp, and exam- 
ined every brick in his floor and every link in his chain. 
He implored leave to send a letter to his mother in America, 
containing only the words " I am alive," but he was refused. 

At the end of a year a nobleman, living near their prison, 
exerted himself in their behalf, and so influenced the tri- 
bunal appointed to judge them, that they were sentenced 
only to a fortnight's additional imprisonment, and were 
released before orders could arrive from Vienna annulling 
the proceedings of the court, and ordering a new trial. 
Bollmann and Huger, however, were by that time safely out 
of the Austrian dominions. 

This account differs in some trifling particulars from 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. 379 

others I have read, but I had it from Mr. Ticknor, of 
Boston, who had heard all the particulars from Lafayette 
and Huger, 

All former cruelties and rigors were inflicted on the 
unfortunate Lafayette. During the winter of 1794-95 he 
was reduced almost to the last extremity by violent fever, 
and yet was deprived of proper attendance, of air, of suit- 
able food, and of decent clothing. He was made to beheve 
that he was to be publicly executed, but that first Bollmann 
and Huger would perish on the scaffold in his sight ; nor 
was he permitted to know if his relatives were still alive, or 
had fallen under the Revolutionary axe, of which, during the 
few days he was out of prison, he had heard such appalling 
accounts. 

Meantime his wife and his two daughters had, after the 
fall of Robespierre, found their way to Vienna. There 
Madame de Lafayette earnestly implored the emperor to 
let them share her husband's imprisonment. The emperor 
granted her petition. For sixteen months she and her 
daughters endured the hardships of imprisonment at 01- 
mutz ; then her health gave way, and she asked leave to 
remove for a week to purer air. She was answered that she 
might go, but that she could not return. At once she 
elected at any peril to remain with her husband. 

But Europe was now moving in Lafayette's favor. Eng- 
land discussed his imprisonment in the House of Commons, 
and Napoleon procured the release of the Olmutz captives 
by the Treaty of Campo Formio, where they were exchanged 
for the Princess Marie Th^rese, who, after the death of her 
parents and her aunt, had remained alone in the Temple. 

Napoleon never liked Lafayette, who resided beyond the 
French frontier till 1799, when he settled on his wife's conn- 
try seat at La Grange, forty miles from Paris, near the Forest 
of Fontainebleau. Napoleon once offered to send him as 
French minister to the United States, but Lafayette declined 
the appointment, not approving Napoleon's views of govern- 
ment. In 1807 he lost his wife, and mourned her deeply 
for the remainder of his days. 



380 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

It was his voice, after Waterloo, that first publicly called 
upon the emperor to abdicate ; but when the question arose 
whether France should make peace with the Allies by surren- 
dering Napoleon's person to his enemies he nobly exclaimed, 
" I am surprised that in making so odious a proposition to 
the French Nation you should have addressed yourselves to 
the prisoner of Olrnutz ! " 

After the Restoration Lafayette lived quietly at La Grange, 
where all young Americans of promise who visited Europe 
at that period were received by him. His household was 
patriarchal. It consisted of his son and his son's wife, 
his two daughters and their husbands. One daughter had 
married Latour Maubourg,^ the aide-de-camp of Lafayette, 
who had been imprisoned, as he was, in the citadel at Olmutz. 
The other daughter had married M. de Lasteyrie. Eleven 
grandchildren were born to Lafayette. He preserved his 
stately presence to a good old age, but covered his white 
hairs with a brown wig as he grew older. About 1818 he 
went back to public Mfe, and was in opposition to the Holy 
Alliance and the policy of the Bourbons. He actively sym- 
pathized with the constitutional revolutions in Spain, Por- 
tugal, and Piedmont. He was even deeply concerned in a 
Carbonaro Conspiracy. He would have been arrested for 
his connection with this plot had he taken a personal part in 
it, but, fortunately for him, the day fixed for the outbreak 
was the anniversary of his wife's death, and he spent it 
always in the seclusion of her chamber. 

Soon after this, in 1824, he was overwhelmed with press- 
ing invitations to revisit America. Congress had even voted 
that a United States frigate should be kept on the French 
coast waiting his pleasure. He was very desirous to come 
over to this country, and he had pecuniary affairs here which 
needed his attention, but he was a poor man ; his patrimonial 
estates had been confiscated, and, as he said : " I owe debts 
to the amount of a hundred thousand francs (about $20,000) 
which must be paid before I can honorably go to another 
quarter of the world." 

1 Page 179. 




MME. DE LAFAYETTE. 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. 38 1 

This sum was accordingly raised among the general's 
friends in Paris, principally among Americans, at the head 
of whom was the founder of the great banking house of 
Brown, Shipley & Company. At Havre, Lafayette em- 
barked on a packet-ship, — not on the United States frigate, 
— accompanied by his son George Washington Lafayette, 
a young man who during his father's captivity had been 
sheltered in the household of General Washington. His 
secretary was also with him, and two very ridiculous Eng- 
lishwomen, who had managed to attach themselves to his 
party. 

He happily landed, after what a contemporary calls " a 
short passage," that is, thirty-four days from Havre to New 
York. No words can describe the wild enthusiasm of his 
reception. He became so accustomed to raise his hat in 
acknowledgment of greetings, that he kept on doing it even 
in his dreams. 

The excitement of the time, its flags, its guns, and its 
processions, left indelible impressions on the minds and 
memories of people still living, who were then young chil- 
dren. Here are two contemporary accounts of Lafayette's 
reception, one of his appearance in Boston, and at Cam- 
bridge, by Mr. Josiah Quincy ; the other of how he visited 
New Orleans, by Vincent Nolte, the financier. 

" As he proceeded on his way from New York to Boston," 
says Mr. Quincy, " the whole country arose to behold and 
welcome him. Every town and village through which he 
passed was ornamented and illuminated, and every testimony 
of gratitude and affection which imagination could devise, 
was offered to the nation's guest. The first sight we caught 
of the general was as he drove up the line in an open ba- 
rouche drawn by four white horses. The enthusiasm I can- 
not attempt to describe. The remarkable history of the man 
which the events of a stirring half century have now some- 
what obliterated from our memory, was then fresh and well 
known. He had sounded all the depths and shoals of 
honor. He had passed from every enjoyment that wealth 
and royal favor could bestow, to poverty and a dungeon. 



382 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

No novelist could dare to imagine the vicissitudes of his life, 
since he left America. 

" He went out to Cambridge, to the Harvard Commence- 
ment. There Mr. Everett pronounced an oration which 
moved every man to tears. . . . The weather, during his 
stay in Boston, was perfection. The leading men of that 
city made receptions for him. He met again the man whom 
he said of all men in America he most wished to see, though 
he had never seen him before for more than two minutes. 
This was Colonel Huger of South Carolina, who had come on 
to Boston to meet him. Their first meeting was unseen by any 
one. Colonel Huger visited him before he was up ip his own 
chamber. The Colonel since his release from Olmutz had 
been living the life of a Southern planter on his farm in the 
uplands of South Carolina, where he had brought up a 
family of eleven children." 

Lafayette is described by Mr. Quincy as a man of a fine 
portly presence, nearly six feet high, wearing lightly the three- 
score and ten years he had nearly completed, showing no 
infirmity save the slight lameness incurred at Brandywine. 
" His face on nearer view showed traces of the sufferings 
through which he had passed, but his brown wig, which sat 
low upon his forehead, concealed some of the wrinkles. 
That wig did him yeoman's service. Without it he could 
never have ridden with his hat off through the continual re- 
ceptions and triumphal entries that were accorded him." 

The next year (1825), after a triumphal tour of the United 
States, Lafayette returned to Boston for the ceremony of 
laying the corner-stone of Bunker's Hill monument, on the 
fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Bunker's Hill. 

Declining the seat of honor prepared for him, he placed 
himself among the Old Defenders. Daniel Webster made 
the oration, Lafayette laid the corner-stone. The prayer 
that preceded the ceremonies was offered by an aged min- 
ister, who, fifty years before on that same spot, had offered 
prayer on the day of the memorable battle. Lafayette's 
toast at the concluding Banquet was " Bunker's Hill, and the 
holy resistance to oppression, which has already enfranchised 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. 383 

the American Hemisphere. The next half century's Jubilee 
feast shall be to Enfranchised Europe." ^ 

Vincent Nolte first saw Lafayette, whom, however, he had 
known before in France, on his arrival in Washington. 
" Henry Clay," he says, " then Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, introduced Lafayette Dec. 10, 1824, 
into the Hall of the House, and presented him to both 
Houses of Congress there assembled. Two thousand 
people were present, including all the foreign ministers, 
except the French one — of the Bourbons. Lafayette after- 
wards told me that though he had witnessed very many 
assemblies in his own country, never had he received such 
an impression as from this one, and that he had never been 
so moved by the eloquence of any man — not even by 
that of Mirabeau — as by the clear and spirited ring of the 
voice of Henry Clay. ' It was,' he said, ' the voice of a 
nation making itself heard by the voice of a great man.' 
The whole House, as if stricken by the wand of an en- 
chanter, had risen to their feet as Clay entered leading 
Lafayette by the hand. Members sat down at the conclu- 
sion of the welcoming speech, but rose again at the first signs 
of a reply. They expected Lafayette to take his spectacles, 
and a written answer from his pocket, but, after a moment's 
pause, he spoke extemporaneously, and in English. . , . 
Congress voted him, as a testimony of the national grati- 
tude, two hundred thousand dollars, and two hundred thou- 
sand acres of land, which the general chose in the newly 
purchased State of Florida. After this Lafayette resolved 
to visit all the States whose representatives had voted for 
this present. ... At New Orleans, the residence of the 
Common Council was entirely refitted for his reception, 
admirably adorned, and luxuriously furnished. A table with 
thirty covers was set every day during the general's stay, 
that he might become acquainted with the principal inhab- 

' Fifty years later the bloody scandal of the Commune had just 
ended, and I need not enumerate the other events which marred or 
impeded the " enfranchisement " of Europe as Lafayette understood 
that word. — E. W. L. 



384 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

itants and planters." From New Orleans he ascended the 
Mississippi to Natchez, in a small steamboat prepared for 
him, accompanied by the Governor of Louisiana and dele- 
gates from among the principal politicians of the day. 

All along the river, at every little town, the steamboat 
stopped, and delegations came on board with speeches. 
" I never," says Nolte, " saw a mark of impatience in his 
countenance. He responded to all with a few suitable and 
flattering words. The ease with which he performed this 
task greatly astonished me. I could not refrain, one day, 
from asking him how he managed always to reply to the 
most silly, idealess speeches. ' Moji ai7ii,' he answered, ' it 
is not hard. I listen with great attention till the speaker 
drops something which pleases me, or that gives opportunity 
for a repartee, and then I think about my reply, and arrange 
it ; but of all the rest I do not hear one syllable, it blows 
over me.' " 

Nolte elsewhere gives an anecdote illustrative of this 
great facility. Two young men came on board at one of 
the landing-places. The general addressing one of them, 
said: "Are you married?" The man replied: "Yes, 
general." " Happy man ! " said Lafayette. Then turning 
to the other he asked the same question. The man replied 
he was a bachelor. '' Ah ! " said Lafayette, " lucky dog ! " 

On his return to France he visited Chavaniac, his birth- 
place, and during his journey through France was received 
everywhere with enthusiasm. 

"At the first outbreak of the Revolution of July in 
1830," says a writer in "Temple Bar," " Lafayette hastened 
back to Paris. During the night of the twenty-eighth he 
personally visited the barricades, directing the insurgents 
with all his old ardor, amidst the cheers of men, women, 
and children ; once more he raised the tricolor upon the 
Hotel de Ville, and never rested until he had not only com- 
pelled the abdication of Charles X. but had driven him from 
his last shelter — Rambouillet. 

" But when the moment arrived to decide on the new 
government of France, Lafayette shrank from advising what 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. 385 

he seemed to have been working for, and presented Louis 
Philippe to the populace as ' The best of Republics.' He 
next busied himself in the reconstruction of the National 
Guard, raising it to one million seven hundred thousand 
men. There was another grand installation, not so grand 
perhaps as that first one of 1790, but sufficiently imposing." 

Yet no sooner was a regular government established than 
it dissatisfied him. He resigned his post as commander-in- 
chief of the National Guard, and although he retained his 
seat in the Chamber of Deputies, may be said to have 
retired into private life at La Grange. 

The last great event of his life was his refusal of the crown 
of Belgium. He died May 20, 1834, in his seventy-seventh 
year. His funeral was magnificent. In the United States 
the Senate Chamber was hung with black for a month. 

" Lafayette had every great quality," said a contemporary, 
" but something seemed to be wanting in each." " Popu- 
larity was the god that ruled him," said Nolte ; " but so 
immense were his services, so ready his self-sacrifice, so 
amiable and honorable his private character, that this flaw 
(if flaw it was), as well as his political mistakes, may well be 
forgotten. He spoke and wrote English perfectly well, but 
in speaking it he had a strong French accent. In writing 
nothing betrayed his nationality but his French handwriting." 

" He would fain be a Grandison-Cromwell," said Mirabeau, 
speaking of him in the early days of the Revolution. " He 
would coquette with the supreme authority without daring to 
seize it." 

" There is much wit and felicity," says the writer in 
"Temple Bar," "in that curiously compounded epithet 
' Grandison-Cromwell.' Imagine if you can, by some impos- 
sible freak of fortune, Sir Charles Grandison thrust into the 
position of a Cromwell, and you will understand much of 
Lafayette's character and actions. In America, under the 
influence of Washington he was admirable, but his part in 
the French Revolution, after it had passed its early stages, 
was that of a fine gentleman demagogue, who would have 
loved to rule over fine gentlemen republicans. ... To stand 

25 



386 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

between Louis XVI. and the people ; to be the protector 
and the master of the one, the hberator and champion of 
the other, and the observed of all, was to obtain the acme 
of his ambition. But his errors were all of the head. In his 
breast there beat a noble heart, in which love of liberty, and 
hatred of despotism, were enshrined in its highest place. . . . 
Above all he was generous to fallen opponents. How hardly 
he strove to save Napoleon from the hands of his enemies ! 
How gratefully he remembered that to the fallen emperor, 
with whose acts and policy he had ever been at variance, 
he owed his release from the dungeons of Olmutz ; and 
when after the accession of Louis Philippe the mob clam- 
ored for the lives of the Polignac Ministry, he stood forth to 
protect from public rage the men whose power he himself 
had worked so ardently to overthrow." 

The name of Lafayette -^ was illustrious as far back as the 
fourteenth century. At the time of the celebration at York- 
town in 1 88 1, the holder of the title was M. Edraond de 
Lafayette, a senator and president of the Conseil General of 
the Upper Loire. He had succeeded his elder brother 
Oscar, who had died childless a few months before. 

The founder of the family was a Marquis de Lafayette, who 
defeated the English at the battle of Bauge, shortly before 
the time of Joan of Arc, — a success which raised the hopes 
of the dauphin, who afterwards recovered the French throne. 

In the seventeenth century two noble and illustrious women 
bore the ancient name. One of these ladies was Louise de 
Lafayette, maid of honor to Anne of Austria, whose husband, 
Louis XIII., fell so deeply in love with the young lady that 
he proposed to establish her in his ■ country house at Ver- 
sailles, a royal shooting box, built before the time of the 
great chateau. Alarmed by the infatuation of the king, and 
seeing no way to save her honor but by devoting herself to 
Heaven, Louise de Lafayette retired to the Convent of the 
Visitation, and at once took the vows. She died at the age 

1 This account of the Lafayette family is from the " Supplement 
Litteraire du Figaro." I translated it and republished it in the 
"Living Age," Sept. 17, 1881. — E. W. L. 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. 387 

of fifty, as Mere Ange'lique, Abbess of Chaillot, a convent she 
had founded. 

Her brother, Comte Lafayette, married in 1655 Marie 
Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, an intimate friend of Madame 
de Se'vigne', and authoress of the " Princesse de Cleves," a 
classical romance of the old school, in many volumes. 

The father of the general fell in a skirmish near Minden, 
April 3, 1758, at the age of twenty-five, when his son was 
seven months old. The name of Lafayette, through this 
infant, came to be worshipped by forty millions of freemen, 
and few American cities are without a street, a square, or an 
avenue, named in his honor. 

All his life long nothing seems to have been able to repress 
his rashness. Equally in vain were the wise exhortations of 
Washington and the cold mockeries of Frederick the Great. 
Even at the age of seventy he exposed himself to great dan- 
ger in a riot at the funeral of General Lamarque, and only 
a short time before his death he persisted in following on 
foot the remains of Dulong, his colleague in the Chamber of 
Deputies, who had been killed in a duel by General Bugeaud. 

In 1778 he wanted to send a challenge to Lord Carlisle, 
who, in an official letter to the American Congress, had in 
his opinion used a phrase insulting to France. Washington 
at once wrote to his young friend, disapproving the challenge. 
" The generous spirit of chivalry/' he said, " when banished 
from the rest of the world, has taken refuge, my dear friend, 
in the highly wrought feelings of your nation. But you can- 
not do anything if the other party will not second you ; and 
although these feelings may have been suitable to the times 
to which they belonged, it is to be feared that in our day 
your adversary, taking shelter behind modern opinions and 
his public character, may even slightly ridicule so old-fash- 
ioned a virtue. Besides, even supposing his lordship should 
accept your challenge, experience has proved that chance, 
far more than bravery or justice, decides in such affairs. I 
therefore should be very unwilling to risk on this occasion a 
life which ought to be reserved for greater things. I trust 
that His Excellency Admiral the Count d'Estaing will agree 



388 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 

with me in this opinion, and that as soon as he can part witli 
you he will send you to headquarters, where I sliall be truly 
glad to welcome you." 

During the summer of 1785 Lafayette paid a visit to 
Germany, and particularly to Prussia. Frederick the Great 
received him with distinction. In his Memoirs he speaks of 
dining with the king at Potsdam. " Lord Cornwallis," he 
says, "was there. The king placed him next me at table, 
and on his other hand he had the Duke of York, the son of 
the King of England. They asked me a thousand questions 
on American affairs." 

The wife of the general, whom he married in 1774, when he 
was httle more than seventeen and she was three years younger, 
was Marie Adrienne Frangoise, second daughter of the Due 
d'Ayen and grand-daughter of the Mare'chale de Noailles ; 
Madame d'Ayen and the Marechale de Noailles were guillo- 
tined during the Reign of Terror. The story of their deaths, 
told by their chaplain, who in lay dress followed their cart to 
the place of execution, will be found in the next chapter. 

After three years of happy married life Lafayette quitted 
his young wife shortly before the birth of their first child, to 
hasten to the aid of the American colonies. The infant born 
during her father's absence became Madame Charles de 
Latour-Maubourg. 

Madame de Lafayette, after the deaths of her grand- 
mother, mother, and sister, languished a year longer in 
prison; but in 1795 she was released, and sent over the 
frontier of France, with her two daughters. With an Amer- 
ican passport she reached Vienna, and there, as we have 
seen, implored the emperor till she obtained permission to 
share her husband's prison. 

After three years and a half of captivity, Lafayette, with 
his fellow-captives, M. Charles de Maubourg and M. de Pusy, 
were set at liberty. 

When Madame de Lafayette quitted France with her two 
daughters, she sent her son, with his tutor, to America. 
George Washington Lafayette was placed by General Wash- 
ington at Harvard University. During one of his visits to 



LAFAYETTE'S CAREER. 389 

Washington in 1797, he met there a young French exile who 
had a project of teaching mathematics and geography for a 
hving. It was the future King of the French, Louis Philippe 
d'Orle'ans. 

Young Lafayette stayed three years in America, and when 
Napoleon became First Consul obtained a commission in the 
French army. But Napoleon, probably from motives of 
policy,, was unwilling that the son of Lafayette should have 
the chance of distinction, and in 1807 the young man in 
disgust retired from the army. 

In 1802 he had married Mademoiselle Destute de Tracy, 
and he had five children, two boys and three girls. The 
elder son, Oscar, died in 1881. His wife, a relative of M. de 
Pusy, one of the prisoners at Olmutz, had died after a year 
of married life, and Oscar never remarried. His brother, M. 
Edmond de Lafayette, succeeded to the title on his death, 
but was a bachelor. Lafayette's direct descendants in the 
male line are now extinct. 

In the female line, through daughters and grand-daugh- 
ters, he has many descendants, all of them allied with illus- 
trious families. 

Madame Charles de Latour-Maubourg had only daughters. 
The husband of one of them, a Piedmontese general, was 
killed at the battle of Novara. 

Lafayette's other daughter, Madame de Lasteyrie, was 
named Virginia. She and her family formed part of the large 
household at La Grange. The Marquis de Lasteyrie died 
before his father-in-law, leaving four children. One daugh- 
ter married the statesman, M. Charles de R^musat, and so 
became daughter-in-law of the lady who has given us her 
Memoirs of the Court of Napoleon. The son, M. Jules de 
Lasteyrie, has held high positions under various French gov- 
ernments. Collaterally the Lafayette family is connected 
with other families of distinction whose names are familiar 
to the American public ; notably with the families of De 
Se'gur and Montalembert. 

The Marquis Edmond de Lafayette attended the com- 
memoration at Yorktown, together with his nephew, young 
M. de R6musat. 



CHAPTER II. 

DEATHS OF THE LADIES OF MADAME DE LAFAYETTE'S 
FAMILY.^ 

nPHE old Mar^chale de Noailles (Marie Antoinette's 
-*- Madame I'Etiquette), her daughter the Duchesse 
d'Ayen, mother of Madame de Lafayette and of Louise, 
who had married her cousin, the Vicomte de Noailles, were 
imprisoned during the Reign of Terror, and were all guillo- 
tined together, July 22, 1794. Their remains shared the 
common lot, and were mingled with those of criminals in 
the cemetery of Picpus ; but the story of their last hours has 
been preserved for us in the narrative of a priest, M. Carri- 
chon, who had to run considerable risk in following the tum- 
brils to the place of execution, in order that, concealed 
among the crowd of spectators and carefully disguised, he 
might give them their last absolution. M. Carrichon wrote 
down his experiences immediately after they occurred, and 
his narrative throws a painfully vivid and personal light on 
events with which we are all vaguely familiar. 

The old Mardchale de Noailles, her daughter and grand- 
daughter, were imprisoned together in their own house from 
September, 1793 (six weeks before the queen's death), to the 
following April. During the whole of that time M. Carrichon, 
the spiritual director of the Duchesse d'Ayen and her daugh- 
ter, visited them once a week ; and as the Terror increased 
its crimes and the tale of its victims grew more and more day 
by day, these three friends exhorted one another to be pre- 
pared for death. One day, with a kind of presentiment, the 
priest said to them, " If you go to the guillotine, and God 
gives me strength to do it, I will accompany you." 

1 Abridged from " Macmillan's Magazine." Reprinted in " Littell's 
Living Age," Dec. 5, 1891. 



DEATHS IN THE LAFAYETTE FAMILY. 391 

The two women took him eagerly at his word and begged 
him, then and there, to promise that he would render them 
this last service. He avows frankly that he hesitated for a 
moment, more clearly conscious than they could be of the 
frightful risk he would run, and the possible uselessness of 
the sacrifice, and then he assented, adding that in order 
that they might not fail to recognize him, he would wear a 
dark blue coat and a red waistcoat. The time for redeeming 
a pledge of which they often reminded him came all too 
soon. In April, 1794, a week after Easter, the three ladies 
were removed to the Luxembourg, and M. Carrichon's direct 
communication with them ceased. But he continued to 
hear news of them through M. Grelet, the young tutor to 
whom Louise de Noailles had confided her children, two 
boys and a girl. Grelet's tender, faithful devotion to her and 
hers was the one bright spot in her fast darkening days. 
Hers was a singularly sweet and noble nature. One reads 
that clearly in her last letters to her husband and children, 
and every one who has ever mentioned her speaks of her 
as " an angel." She was beautiful as well as good and 
charming, and the love of her husband's family, as well as 
of her own, seems to have been centred on her. 

What manner of man her husband, M. le Vicomte Louis 
de Noailles, was, we know not. He was an emigre with the 
army at Coblentz. Here is his wife's farewell letter to him, 
written at the Luxembourg and committed to the care of 
M. Grelet. 

" You will find this letter from me, mon ami, written at 
different times, and very badly put together. I should like 
to have rewritten it and to have added many things, but 
that has not been possible here. I can only renew to you 
the assurance of that most tender feeling for you the exist- 
ence of which you know already, and which will go with me 
beyond the grave. You will be aware in what situation I 
now find myself, and you will learn with consolation that God 
has taken care of me, that He has sustained my strength 
and my courage, that the hope of obtaining your salvation, 
your eternal happiness, and that of my children, by the 



392 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

sacrifice of my life, has encouraged and will encourage me 
in the most terrible moments. I place in your hands tliese 
dear children, who have been the consolation of my life, and 
who I hope will be yours. I have confidence that you will 
only seek to strengthen in them the principles which I have 
tried to inculcate ; they are the only source of true happiness, 
and the only means of attaining to it. There remains for 
me, mon ami, one last request to make to you, which will, I 
believe, be superfluous when you know it. It is, I conjure 
you with the utmost earnestness, never to separate from these 
children M. Grelet, whom I leave in charge of them. There 
is no ease and no softening in my lot that I have not at all 
times owed to him, especially since I have been in prison. 
He has served as father and mother to those poor children. 
He has devoted himself and sacrificed himself for them and 
me in the most painful circumstances, with a tenderness and 
courage I shall never be able to repay. The sole consolation 
I carry with me is to know that my children are in his hands. 
You will not frustrate it, mon a?ni, and I have firm confidence 
you will regard this wish of mine as sacred." 

Everything in the Vicomtesse de Noailles' conduct and 
all her utterances bear witness to the dignity and beauty of a 
character which, if not exceptional, at least serves to remind 
us that there were women at that period other in heart and 
soul — court ladies and grandes dames though they might 
be — from the frivolous, curious, skeptical, light-hearted 
beings, the minutiae of whose dress and deportment, along 
with their incurable levity, live for us in De Goncourt's 
" Femmes du XVHI"'.'' Siecle," and elsewhere. 

But to return to M. Carrichon's narrative. In June of 
that terrible summer, M. Grelet came to ask him whether he 
would render the same service he had promised to Madame 
de Noailles to her grandfather and grandmother by marriage, 
the old Marechal de Mouchy and his wife. The priest went 
immediately to the Palais de Justice (part of the Concier- 
gerie), whither the prisoners had been moved, and succeeded 
in penetrating into the courtyard, where all the condemned 
were assembled. Those he especially sought were close to 



DEATHS IN THE LAFAYETTE FAMILY. 393 

him, under his eyes, for more than a quarter of an hour, but 
he had only once before seen M. and Madame de Mouchy, 
and, though he knew them, they were not able to distinguish 
him. What he could do he did for them, " by the inspira- 
tion and by the help of God ; " and he heard the brave old 
soldier praying aloud with all his heart, and was told by 
others that the evening before, as the prisoners left the Lux- 
embourg for their trial, and their fellow-prisoners pressed 
round them with expressions of sympathy, the marshal made 
answer : " At seventeen I mounted the breach for my king ; 
at seventy-eight I go to the scaffold for my God. Friends, I 
am not unfortunate." 

On this occasion, M. Carrichon thought it useless to at- 
tempt to follow the tumbrils to the guillotine, and he augured 
ill for the fulfilment of the promise he had made to Louise 
de Noailles. She and her mother had been with the De 
Mouchys to the last, doing their best to serve and solace 
them, and he knew now that their turn to go might be very 
near. Yet all through the dreary month that followed, the 
tumbrils rolled daily, and heads fell by the score, and his 
friends still lived. 

The 2 2d of July fell on a Tuesday; and early in the 
morning, between eight and ten o'clock, just as M. Carrichon 
was going out, he heard a knock, and on opening his door 
saw the young De Noailles and their tutor. The boys were 
merry with the light-heartedness of their age, and from igno- 
rance of the situation ; but the haggard sadness expressed 
in M. Grelet's face told the priest at once that the blow had 
fallen. Leaving the children, Grelet drew him into an inner 
room, where, flinging himself into a chair, the young man told 
him that the three ladies De Noailles had gone before the 
Revolutionary Tribunal, and that he came to summon him 
to keep his promise. He himself was going to take the two 
boys to Vincennes, where their little sister Euph^mie, four 
years old, had been left in charge of friends, and during their 
walk through the woods he intended to prepare the unhappy 
children for their terrible loss. 

Once alone with his reflections, after M. Gre'let and the 



394 ^-^^ FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

boys had gone, M. Carrichon felt utterly appalled at the 
prospect of the task he had undertaken. Nothing gives a 
fresher stamp of truth and vivid reality to his simple narration 
than the betrayal of his own irresolution, which is more than 
once repeated in its pages. He was a good man, but no 
hero. A man of heart, but not a man of strong nerves ; 
and having tried it once, he was keenly aware of the tremen- 
dous nature of the risk he ran, compared with the very slight 
chance there could be of succeeding in his mission. This 
psychological characteristic, which cannot fairly be called 
want of courage, certainly adds something to M. Carrichon'^ 
account of that day's events. It makes one feel so intensely 
the passionate struggle which up to the last moment went on 
in his mind, between the natural instinct of self-preservation 
and his earnest desire to do his duty by those who had con- 
fided their spiritual welfare to him while they were still at 
ease and in safety. 

' " My God ! " he cried aloud in his distress of mind, " have 
pity alike on them and on me ! " 

Then the priest disguised himself as agreed, and went out. 
He transacted some business of his own first, carrying about 
with him everywhere a heart of lead, and between one and 
two o'clock went to the Palais de Justice. He was not al- 
lowed to enter, but he contrived to ask a few questions from 
some who had just come from the tribunal, and their answers 
dispelled the last illusions of hope. He could doubt the 
horrible truth no longer. His business next took him to the 
Faubourg St. Antoine, and it was not till nearly five o'clock 
that he returned with slow, lagging, irresolute steps, desiring 
in his heart either not to arrive in time, or else not to find 
there those who so much desired his presence. 

When he reached the palace nothing as yet announced 
the departure of the prisoners. For nearly an hour he 
waited, at once the longest and the shortest hour of his life, 
pacing the great hall in an agony of anxiety, and glancing 
from time to time into the court below, to see what prepara- 
tions were going forward. At length, about six o'clock, a 
noise of opening doors struck on his strained ears. He 



DEATHS IN THE LAFAYETTE FAMILY. 395 

went down hurriedly and placed himself as near as possible 
to the grating which separated the prison from the hall of 
justice. For the last fortnight no one had been allowed 
within the courtyard on these occasions. The first cart was 
filled, and came slowly towards him. It contained eight 
ladies, all personally unknown to him ; but in the ninth, the 
last of their number, he recognized the old Marechale de 
Noailles, and the sight of her, alone, without her daughter 
or grand-daughter, revived within him a ray of hope. It 
was instantly quenched. They were together in the last 
cart. Madame de Noailles, girlishly young and fair, looking 
scarcely twenty-four, all in white, — which she had worn as 
mourning since the death of her grandparents, M. and 
Madame de Mouchy, — and Madame d'Ayen in a striped 
deshabille of blue and white. Six men mounted the cart, 
and M. Carrichon noticed that the first two placed them- 
selves at a little distance from the two ladies with an air of 
respect, as if with a desire to give them a brief spell of 
privacy. 

Hardly were they seated when Madame de Noailles began 
to show her mother a tender, eager solicitude, which caught 
the attention of the bystanders. " Do you see that young 
one," the priest heard- some one near him say, "how she 
moves about and talks to the other?" 

Then he perceived that the prisoners' eyes were searching 
for him, and from their expressions he seemed to hear their 
whispered words : " Mother, he is not here." " Look again." 
** Nothing escapes me ; I assure you he is not here." 

They had forgotten — poor souls — in their acute anxiety 
a fact of which he had sent them warning, that he could not 
possibly enter the courtyard. The first cart remained close 
to him for at least a quarter of an hour. Directly it began 
to move on, the other started, and M. Carrichon made 
ready. It passed, and neither saw him. He re-entered the 
Palais de Justice, made a long detour, and placed himself in 
a conspicuous place at the opening of the Pont au Change. 
Madame de Noailles gazed round in all directions, but by a 
curious fatality missed him again. He followed them the 



396 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

length of the bridge, separated from them by the crowd, but 
still in close proximity. Madame de Noailles sought the 
whole time, but yet did not perceive him. Madame d'Ayen's 
face began to wear an extreme disquietude, and her daughter 
redoubled her attention, but in vain. Then the priest con- 
fesses that he felt tempted to renounce his dangerous 
mission. "I have done all I can," he said to himself. 
" Everywhere else the crowd will be still greater. It cannot 
be done, and I am tired to death." 

He was just about to desist, and to retrace his steps, when 
the sky grew dark, and a distant murmur of thunder was 
heard. A sudden impulse made him determined to try 
again. By short cuts and back ways he contrived to reach 
the street St. Antoine before the tumbrils, at a spot nearly 
opposite the too famous prison La Force. And now the 
wind rose, and the brooding storm burst with all its fury, 
with lightning and thunder and torrents of rain. The priest 
withdrew beneath a doorway, standing on the steps of a 
shop, which was ever after present to his memory, and which 
he could never see again without emotion. In one instant 
the street was swept clear of all spectators ; everyone had 
run under cover, or up into the windows, and the line of 
march in the advancing procession became broken and dis- 
ordered. The horsemen and the foot-guards moved along 
quicker, and the carts also. In another minute they were 
close to the Little St. Antoine, and M. Carrichon was still 
undecided what to do. 

The first cart passed him, and then an uncontrollable 
involuntary inspiration made him hastily leave the doorway 
and advance toward the second. He found himself close to 
it, and quite alone, with Madame de Noailles smiling down 
on him with a radiant smile of welcome, that seemed to say, 
" Ah ! there you are at last ; how glad we are ! " Then she 
called her mother's attention to him, and the poor woman's 
failing spirit revived. And with that brave action all the 
priest's own agony of irresolution passed away, and left him 
strong and peaceful. By the grace of God he felt himself 
filled with an extraordinary courage to do and dare the 



DEATHS IN THE LAFAYETTE FAMILY. 397 

utmost. Drenched with sweat and rain, he thought no 
more of that, nor of any outward things, but continued to 
walk beside them. On the steps of the College of St. Louis 
he perceived a friend, — Father Brun of the Oratory, — also 
seeking to render them his last services of consolation, and 
to express his respect and attachment. The latter's face 
and attitude showed all he felt at seeing them on their way 
to death, and as M. Carrichon passed he touched Father 
Brun on the shoulder, saying with a thrill of inexpressible 
emotion, " Bon soir, mon ami ! " 

Here there was a square into which several streets ran, 
and at this point the storm was at its height, and the wind 
at its wildest. The ladies in the first cart were very much 
discomforted by it, especially the Mare'chale de Noailles. 
Her big cap was blown off her head, and her gray hair 
exposed, while she and all the others swayed to and fro in 
the tempest, on their miserable benches without any backs, 
and their hands tied behind them. A number of people 
who had collected there in spite of the storm, recognized the 
well-known face of the great court lady, and fixed all their 
attention on her, adding to her torment by insulting cries. 
" There she is ! " they shrieked, — " that marechale who 
used to cut such a dash and drive in such a grand chariot, 
— there she is in the cart with all the rest ! " The noise 
continued and followed them, while the sky grew darker 
and the rain more violent. They reached the square before 
the Faubourg St. Antoine. M. Carrichon moved on ahead to 
reconnoitre, and swiftly decided that here at last was the best 
place to accord the prisoners that which they so greatly 
desired. The second cart was going a little slower, and 
stopping short he leaned towards its occupants, making a 
sign which Madame de Noailles perfectly understood and 
communicated to her mother. Then, as the two women 
bent their heads " with an air of repentance, hope, and 
piety," the priest raised his hand, and with covered head 
pronounced distinctly and with concentrated attention the 
whole formula of absolution, and the words that follow it. 
All thought of self was obliterated in the solemn joy of that 



398 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

moment. Then the sky cleared and the rain ceased, and 
as the carts advanced into the faubourg, a curious mocking 
crowd assembled to see them pass. The ladies in the first 
one were heaped with insults, the mar^chale especially, but 
no one said a word to Madame d'Ayen and her daughter. 

M. Carrichon continued, sometimes beside them, some- 
times a httle in advance. By the Abbaye de St. Antoine he 
met a young man whom he knew, a priest whose integrity he 
had reason to suspect, and for an instant was in great fear of 
being recognized. But he passed without notice, and at last 
they arrived at the fatal spot. Then, at sight of the guillo- 
tine, — at the knowledge that in a few minutes more all these 
helpless victims of blind rage would, one after another, pass 
out of life under the pitiless stroke of the executioner, — a 
fresh agony of horror and despair swept over the priest's sad 
heart. He thought most of those he knew and loved, but he 
thought also of others unknown to him, men and women 
perishing cruelly, unavailingly, in their prime, — of the chil- 
dren orphaned, and the homes made desolate forever. 

The carts stopped, and the guards surrounded them, with 
a crowd of spectators, for the most part laughing, jesting, 
and amusing themselves over the details of the harrowing 
scene. To be forced to see it all, to stand among them, and 
to listen to the grim ferocity of their light remarks, was an 
experience whose memory a man might well carry engraved 
on his heart to his dying day. 

While the executioner was helping the ladies out of the 
first cart, Madame de Noailles' eyes were seeking for the 
priest's face, and having found it, dwelt there with looks full 
of sweet gratitude to him and tender farewell to all those 
dear ones now passed out of her sight forever. M. Carrichon 
drew his hat down over his eyes, so as to attract as little 
notice as possible, but kept them fixed on her. The mob 
had grown satiated with the sight of youth, beauty, and in- 
nocence mounting the scaffold, and it was not so much 
these characteristics of Louise de Noailles that attracted its 
fickle attention, as her air of radiant serenity, the expression 
of a soul whose triumphant faith had looked grim Death in 



DEATHS IN THE LAFAYETTE FAMILY. 399 

the face and for whom its bitterness was overpast. " Ah ! 
see that young one ! how content she is ! How she hfts her 
eyes to Heaven ! How she prays ! But what good will that 
do her? " Then, as if the sight of a spirit in that frail body 
which they could not break, — a fortitude and courage that 
they could not conquer, — a last degradation of suffering 
that they could not inflict, stirred them to dull fury, came 
savage jeers at those supposed to love their priests, '■^Ah ! 
les scl'lerats de calotins I " 

The last farewells were then exchanged, and the final act 
of the hideous drama was played out under the priest's 
shrinking, but yet fascinated eyes. He left the spot where 
he had been standing, and went round to the other side 
of the guillotine, where he found himself facing the rough 
wooden steps that led up to the scaffold. Against them 
leant an old man, with white hair, z fermier general, some 
one said, — a lady he did not know, — and just opposite to 
him the old Mar^chale de Noailles, clad in black taffetas, was 
sitting on a block of stone, waiting, with fixed, wide open eyes, 
for her turn to come. All the others were ranged in two 
lines on the side looking toward the Faubourg St. Antoine. 
From where M. Carrichon now stood he could only see 
Madame d'Ayen. Her anxiety was at rest now, and her 
whole attitude expressed a simple and resigned devotion in 
the sacrifice she was about to offer to God through the merits 
of her Saviour. The Marechale de Noailles went third to 
that altar of sacrifice. The executioners had to cut away 
part of her dress to uncover her neck sufficiently, and at 
this point the priest felt an intense longing to go away. But 
he determined now to drink the cup to its last dregs, to 
keep his word to the bitter end, since God had given him 
strength to control himself even while shuddering with dread. 
Six ladies followed her, and the tenth victim was Madame 
dAyen, content to die before her daughter, as the daughter 
was content to die after her mother. The executioner pulled 
off Madame d'Ayen's cap, and as there was a pin in it that 
she had forgotten to take out, he wrenched her hair violently, 
causing a sharp expression of pain to cross the calm face. 



400 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

And then, with quickened poignancy of emotion, the priest 
watched Louise de Noailles' slender white figure mount the 
steps. " She looked," he says, " much younger than she 
really was, like a little gentle lamb, going to the slaughter." 
There was the same trouble with her head-dress as with her 
mother's, but in a moment her face recovered its sweet com- 
posure. " Oh, how happy she is now ! " cried inwardly the 
priest, as they threw her body down into its ghastly coffin. 
" May the Almighty and Merciful God reunite us all in that 
dwelling place where there will be no more revolutions, in 
a country ' which,' as Saint Augustine has said, ' will have 
Truth for its King; Charity for its Law; and Eternity for 
its duration ! ' " 



BOOK VII. 

LOUIS XVII. 

I. The Dauphin in the Temple. 

II. Historic Doubts as to the Fate of Louis XVII. 
III. The Lost Prince. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DAUPHIN IN THE TEMPLE.^ 

T^HE interview between Marie Antoinette, M. Grandidier, 
-*■ and the Commissioner sent from Vienna by her nephew, 
the Emperor of Austria, which has been related in a previous 
chapter, was but a few days after her separation from her 
son, — that cruelest of all cruelties, — which took place July 
3, 1793. No wonder that the unhappy mother was reduced 
to the apathy of despair ; no wonder that she refused deliv- 
erance, since it would deprive her of the last sad consolation 
of being at least near to her son. Here is the account of 
the separation, as told us by the other child-captive, the future 
Duchesse d'Angouleme. 

" The municipal officers read to us a decree of the Con- 
vention that my brother should be separated from us. As 
soon as he heard this, he threw himself into the arms of my 
mother and entreated with violent cries not to be separated 
from her. My mother was struck to the earth by this cruel 
order ; she would not part with her son, and she actually de- 
fended, against the efforts of the officers, the bed on which 
she had placed him. My mother exclaimed that they had 
better kill her than tear her son from her. An hour was 
spent in resistance on her part, in threats and insults from 
the officers, and in prayers and tears on the part of us all. 

1 See note to Book III., Chap. VIL 
26 



402 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

At last they threatened the lives of both him and me, and my 
mother's maternal tenderness at length forced her to this 
sacrifice. My aunt and I dressed the child, for my poor 
mother had no longer strength for anything. Nevertheless, 
when he was dressed she took him in her arms, and delivered 
him to the officers, bathing him with her tears and fore- 
seeing that she should never see him again. The poor little 
fellow embraced us all tenderly, and was carried off in a 
flood of tears." 

The princess then tells us that her heart-broken mother 
never looked up after the loss of her son. It was thus that 
the envoy from Austria saw her, sitting on her low stool, her 
face the picture of apathy. About a month after her boy 
had been taken away, Marie Antoinette was removed to the 
Conciergerie. 

The two princesses, Madame Elisabeth and the princess 
royal, were left sad and desolate in their tower. They were 
kept in ignorance of the queen's condition, but knowing 
how much she had been accustomed to beguile her sorrows . 
by work they sought permission to send her some materials. 
They collected all the silks and worsteds they could find, 
and also a pair of little stockings she had begun to knit for 
the dauphin. But these things she was not permitted to have, 
under pretense that she might kill herself with the knitting- 
needles. The queen's industry, however, overcame all im- 
pediments. She found a piece of old carpet in her cell 
which she unravelled, and by means of two bits of wood she 
contrived to knit these ravellings into garters. 

Meantime the fair child, who had been torn from his 
mother and friends, was going through a course of misery 
and debasement which it makes the blood boil to read about, 
and its details need not be repeated here. 

There has always been great doubt whether the story as 
told of his life in prison after the 9th Thermidor, 1794, and 
his death on June 8 of the succeeding year, is altogether 
true. Up to the 9th Thermidor there is no reason to doubt 
what has been told us of him. After that comes the doubt. 
Within the last three years especial interest has been roused 




LOUIS XVII 



THE DAUPHIN IN THE TEMPIE. 403 

on the subject in France ; and " Figaro " undertook an ex- 
amination of the question. The date of his supposed death 
was June 8, 1795, a little more than one hundred years ago. 
The story as it has commonly been told and believed is as 
follows. 

He was placed under the care of a fierce Jacobin cobbler 
and his wife. Their name was Simon. This man at once 
stripped the boy of the suit of mourning that had been given 
him for his father, and dressed him in a red cap and a 
coarse jacket, called a carmagnole, a sort of sans-cidotte 
uniform. He made the boy drink intoxicating liquors ; he 
taught him blasphemous oaths and revolutionary songs, and 
obliged him to repeat them at the windows, so as to be 
heard by the guards. Often he would rouse him in the night 
from sleep with a sudden cry of, Capet! eveille-toi! In 
short, no pains were spared to vitiate his character and to 
destroy his health. In a few months this lovely boy, who 
had been gifted by nature with an excellent constitution, 
became a miserable object, diseased and stupefied by ill 
treatment. He suffered, as we know from a physician's 
report, from tumors on his wrists and near the knees. But 
he must have retained a surprising degree of firmness for a 
child of his tender years if the following anecdote is true. 

It appears that his artful keepers had drawn from him 
some expressions which they chose to interpret as impeach- 
ing the conduct of the queen and Madame Elisabeth, and 
that they compelled him to sign a deposition against them. 
The boy was so grieved at the use made of his words that 
he formed a resolution never to speak again, and this reso- 
lution he persisted in for a considerable time, although 
threats and promises of fruit and toys, and everything that 
could be most tempting to a child, were employed to make 
him break it. 

On Jan. 19, 1794, Simon, who until then had been 
his companion, left him, and the princess thus continues her 
narrative: "Unheard of — unexampled barbarity ! To leave 
an unhappy and sickly child of eight years old alone in a 
great room, locked and bolted. He had indeed a bell, 



404 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

which he never rang, so greatly did he dread the people 
whom its sound would have brought to him. He preferred 
wanting anything and everything to summoning his perse- 
cutors. His bed was not stirred for six months, and he 
had not strength to make it himself. For all that time he 
had no change of shirt or stockings. He might indeed have 
washed himself, and might have kept himself cleaner than 
he did, for he had a pitcher of water, but, overwhelmed by 
the ill-treatment he had received, he had not the resolution 
to do so; and his illness began to deprive him of the 
necessary strength. He passed his days without any occu- 
pation, and in the evening was allowed no light. His situa- 
tion affected his mind as well as his body." 

French historians, Lamartine among them, speak of the 
child as at this time reduced to imbecility. 

In this pitiable condition he continued, it is said, to exist 
until November, 1794, three months after the 9th Thermidor, 
which occurred in July. Then the arrival of two new 
jailers of more humane dispositions brought about an ame- 
lioration of his unhappy condition. Their first care was to 
procure him another bed, and one of them, named Garnier,^ 
would frequently sit with him whole hours to amuse him. 
The poor boy, who had been long unused to kindness, soon 
became very fond of him. But these attentions came too 
late to save his life, although his disease, having to contend 
with a naturally strong constitution, made its way by very 
slow degrees, and he lingered until June 8, 1795. 

Such is the story generally received, and told by Garnier 
{alias Gomin) to the Duchesse d'Angouleme, who took him 
into her service in recognition of his kindness to the poor 
child. But who shall fell us that the child Garnier nursed, 
and whom no doubt he genuinely believed to be the son of 
Louis XVI., was really the little dauphin? 

M. de Beauchesne has written a book on Louis XVII. 
which, so far as relates to the fate of the dauphin after Ther- 
midor, was pronounced forty years ago by one who had 
studied the subject a " preposterous fiction." 

1 A name given in three ways, — Garnier, Gomin, and Govin. 



THE DA UPHIN IN THE TEMPLE. 405 

However, the story just given is that which has been 
commonly received, and no doubt its details of the child's 
misery up to Thermidor are correct, as is De Beauchesne's 
narrative up to the same date. But the next chapter will 
show the doubts that of late have arisen in France, and give 
particulars of the historic doubts thrown on the same subject 
forty-four years ago in America. Before proceeding to 
detail them, I should like to give, from " Harper's Magazine," 
a translation that I made some years since of a noble poem 
by Victor Hugo, whose mother was a devout Catholic and 
a royalist, and who in her son's youth inspired him with 
some of her ideas. 

LOUIS XVII. 

Capet, eveille-toi ! 

Heaven's golden gates were opened wide one day, 
And through them shot a glittering, dazzling ray 

From the veiled glory, through the shining bars ; 
Whilst the glad armies of the ransomed stood 
Beneath the dome of stars. 

From griefs untold a boy-soul took its flight ; 
Sorrow had dulled his eyes and quenched their light; 

Round his pale features floated golden hair ! 
See ! virgin souls with songs of welcome stand, 
With martyr palms to fill his childish hand, 

And crown him with that crown the Innocents shall wear. 

Hark! hear th' angelic host their song begin : 
" New angel ! Heaven is open ; enter in. 

Come to thy rest ; thine earthly griefs are o'er. 
God orders all who chant in praise of Him, 
Prophets, archangels, seraphim. 

To hail thee as a king and martyr evermore." 

" When did I reign? " the gentle spirit cries. 

" I am a captive, not a crowned king. 
Last night in a sad place I closed my eyes. 

When did I reign ? Oh, Lord, explain this thing ! 
My father's death still fills my heart with fear. 

A cup of gall to me, his son, was given. 
I am an orphan. Is my mother here ? 

I always see her in my dreams of heaven." 



406 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The angels answered : " God, the wise and good, 
Dear boy, hath called thee from an evil world. 

A world that tramples on the blessed Rood, 

Where regicides with ruthless hands have hurled 
Kings from their thrones ; 

And from their very graves have tossed their mouldering bones.' 

" What ! is my long, sad, weary waiting o'er .? " 

The child exclaimed. " Has all been suffered then ? 
Is it quite true that from this time no more 

I shall be rudely waked by cruel men ? 
Ah ! in my prison every day I prayed 

' How long, O God ! before some help will come ? ' 
Oh, can this be a dream .-' I feel afraid. 

Can I have died, and be at last at home ? 

" You know not half my griefs that long sad while ; 

Each day life seemed more terrible to bear. 
I wept, but had no mother's pitying smile, 

No dear caress to soften my despair. 

" It seemed as if some punishment were sent 

Through me some unknown sin to expiate. 
I was so young ; ere knowing what sin meant, 

Could I have earned my fate ? 

" Vaguely, far off my memory half recalls 

Bright, happy days before these days of fear; 
Asleep, a glorious murmur seems to fall 

Of cheers and plaudits on my childish ear. 
Then I remember all this passed away ; 

Mysteriously the brightness ceased to be. 
In prison a lone, friendless boy I lay, 

And all men hated me. 

" My young life in a living tomb they threw. 

My eyes no more beheld the sun's bright beams ; 
But now I see you — angels — brothers ! who 

So often came to watch me in my dreams. 
Men crushed my life in their hard, cruel hands, — 

But they had wrongs. Oh, Lord, do not condemn ! 
Be not as deaf as they were to my prayers ! 

I want to pray for them." 

The angels chanted : " Heaven's holiest place 

Welcomes thee in. We '11 crown thee with a star I 
Blue wings of cherubim thy form shall grace 
On which to float afar. 



THE DAUPHIN IN THE TEMPLE. 407 

" Come with us : thou shalt comfort babes who weep 

In unwatched cradles in the world below; 
Or bear fresh light on wings of glorious sweep 
To suns that burn too low." 

The angels paused. The child's eyes filled with tears ; 

On Heaven an awful silence seemed to fall. 
The Father spake ; and, echoing through the spheres, 
His voice was heard by all. 

" My love, dear king, preserved thee from the fate 

Of earth-crowned kings, whose griefs thou hast not known. 
Rejoice, and join the angels' happy hymns. 
Thou hast not known the trials of the great. 
Thy brow was never bruised beneath a crown, 
Though chains were on thy limbs. 
What though life's burthen crushed thy tender frame. 
Child of bright hopes — heir of a royal name ? 

Better to be 
Child of that Blessed One who suffered scorn, 
Heir of the King who wore a Crown of Thorn, 
Hated and mocked — like thee ! " 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORIC DOUBTS AS TO THE FATE OF LOUIS XVII. 

nPHE Story of the dauphin's imprisonment as it has been 
-*■ commonly received is no doubt true in its earlier part ; 
that is, until the removal of Simon ; but ever since the resto- 
ration of Louis XVIII. there have been rumors that the 
dauphin was secretly conveyed out of the Temple ; and 
there have been several persons who claimed to be the dau- 
phin, notably a man named Naundorff, calling himself by 
the dauphin's title of the Duke of Normandy. Recently 
the question has been revived in France, and has created 
considerable stir there. 

It can easily be conceived what confusion and inconve- 
nience it would have caused in France and in French politics, 
in 1814, and indeed in the politics of the whole European 
world, had a young man of twenty-nine suddenly been pro- 
duced as the lost prince, — a man wholly untrained for his 
position, — and had such a man supplanted his uncle, who, 
in good faith (or otherwise), had called himself Louis XVIII. 
for nineteen years. It was far better to admit no doubt of 
the current story, to suppress all contradictions, to disown the 
pretenders as impostors, but never to investigate their tales. 
Nevertheless, here is the case as it at present stands, and as, 
during the year 1895, it has been presented to the French 
public.^ Some persons have affirmed their conviction of the 
child's escape, and identify him with the unfortunate Naun- 
dorff. Some believe in the escape, but not in Naundorff, and 
say that it was a political necessity that the child whose life was 
saved should have remained anonymous, — lost in the world's 

1 These particulars are taken from the "Supplement Litteraire du 
Figaro," June 8, 1895. 



THE FATE OF LOUIS XVII. 409 

crowd. Some again think that the Convention did not let 
its prey escape, and that the child died in the Temple. 

The necessity that the Bourbons on their restoration should 
maintain the truth of this last story was forcibly set forth by 
a Prussian named Von Rochow, on the first attempt made 
by Naundorff to establish his identity with Louis XVII. 
"If this young man be the Dauphin of France," he said, 
" he cannot be acknowledged as such, because that acknowl- 
edgment would be to the dishonor of all the monarchies of 
Europe." 

France, in 1794, was panting for peace. The eyes of 
French legitimists were fixed upon the Temple, where lan- 
guished the poor child under whose ancestors France had 
become glorious and great. Monsieur le Comte de Provence 
had been accused, even in his brother's hfetime, of designs 
to seat himself on the French throne. His ambition and his 
hopes increased in proportion as the fortunes of his country 
grew worse and worse, and he kept up communication with 
some of the more prominent members of the Convention. 

Barras and his party, of course, wished to retain the power 
that had fallen to them on the death of Robespierre. By 
conniving at the escape of the young boy (or even by con- 
triving it) Barras could please Josephine de Beauharnais, who 
at that time had an all-powerful influence over him, and the 
child, should he be produced at the right moment, might 
checkmate the ambitious projects of Louis XVIII. and 
serve purposes of his own. 

It is a fact that on the very night of his triumph on the 
9th Thermidor, Barras went to the Temple ; that he there 
saw the child-king \ that the very next day, without any 
communication with the Committee of PubUc Safety, which, 
up to that time, had controlled affairs in the prison, he as- 
signed a retainer of his own to be superintendent of the 
prison, Laurent, a man born in Martinique (Josephine's 
birthplace). Laurent turned out the people charged with 
the care of the child and put in a man and his wife named 
Li^nard. During the first two months after these people 
came to the Temple, many persons saw the royal child, but 



41 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

none of them have ever described him as either dumb or 
scrofulous, hke the prisoner who died the next year on the 
8th of June. On the contrary, they all spoke of him as a 
somewhat delicate child, with gentle manners, who charmed 
all of them. 

But suddenly, instead of allowing visitors to have access to 
him, as had been the case for two months after Thermidor, 
every one was forbidden to see him. This prohibition corre- 
sponds with two curious circumstances. 

Madame Royale, his sister, tells us that on the last night of 
May, in the middle of the night, two municipal guards, much 
excited, forced their way into her chamber. They said nothing. 
All they wanted apparently was to see if she was there. No 
such -thing happened before or after during her captivity. 
The second fact is that a week later another man replaced 
Laurent, Covin by name. Laurent had been full of kind- 
ness for the captive ; Govin ruled him by fear. About the 
same time there was a general impression among the under- 
lings of the Temple that something strange had taken place. 
The fidelity of Laurent was called in question in the Sections. 
An official connected with the Temple said openly that it 
was hard for the guard to say if they were keeping watch 
over prisoners, or only over stones. 

All those who served in menial capacities in the Temple 
were changed, some of them at the request of Laurent, who 
had begun his service July 27, 1794, and some afterwards by 
the desire of Govin. Up to this man's time there had been 
a daily inspection of the prison and the prisoners by mem- 
bers of the Council-General of the Commune. This inspec- 
tion was replaced by a daily visit from a deputation from the 
Sections, taking the thirty-six Sections in turn, so that instead 
of men who had seen the prisoners only a short time before, 
new men came, who were not likely to take their turn again 
for a long while. 

According to an old custom, things coming into the Tem- 
ple were not examined, — only those that went out. It was 
easy enough therefore to bring a child into the Tower in a 
clothes basket, and this was done probably with two children. 



THE FATE OF LOUIS XVII. 411 

one after the other, while the young king was hidden in some 
secret corner, and waited on by tlie scullion Caron, Lidnard, 
and Laurent. 

This is the only way to account for the sudden dumbness 
of the child in prison, which took place not in consequence 
of remorse for having been made to malign his mother, but 
nine months after the Simons had been removed from him 
and kinde;- jailers had taken their place. The first child 
brought in to take the place of the young captive was dumb. 
The dauphin, up to the time when Laurent gave up his care 
of him, had spoken at least to twenty people. But the child 
committed to Covin's care on November 8, 1 794, could not 
speak a single word. There are plenty of official documents 
and depositions on this subject, the most important of which 
is the testimony of members of the Committee of Public 
Safety. 

By reason of the rumors afloat that the prince had dis- 
appeared, three friends of Barras, all, like him, members of 
the Convention, went to the Temple. They passed two 
hours with the child. They questioned him with the utmost 
persistence ; but they obtained neither sign nor word. They 
were so much astonished at this that they decided to make 
no report that could be given to the public, but reported in 
secret to the Committee what they had seen. It is one of 
these men, Harmand, who tells us this. 

Another curious circumstance is that Harmand, almost 
immediately after this visit, was sent away as delegate to the 
West Lidies. Barras himself had some idea of accompanying 
him on this mission. It looks as if they were planning to 
secure their own safety in any event, or as if it had been in- 
tended to send the child to some French colony in America. 

Both Harmand and Barras went to Brest, stayed there 
several weeks, and then returned to Paris. 

Another series of strange events occurred between the 
31st of March and the 8th of June, 1795, the date of the 
supposed death of the dauphin. 

Laurent left the Temple. It was said that he too was 
going to the West Indies to attend to family affairs; but 



412 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

he did not leave Paris. Some time later indeed he went 
to the Windward Islands, on a mission for which he was 
well paid by government. But by that time Barras was a 
member of the Directory, and Laurent was sent on the 
mission at his recommendation. A new turnkey took his 
place at the Temple, Etienne Lasne, a house-painter. 

Covin and Laurent had had under their care for six 
months a child who never spoke a word. The child con- 
fided to Lasne, he tells us himself, could chatter like a 
httle magpie. Govin had nothing more to do with the 
young prince (or the child who personated him). He 
was transferred to the service of Madame Royale. 

On June 8, 1795, the child in the Temple died. It 
was just then that the Committee was carrying on negotia- 
tions with Spain and with La Vendee, and it was very 
desirable for all parties that the child-king should be out 
of the way. 

There is mystery even as to what this child died of. The 
dumb child had the rickets {rachitis), a disease that begins 
in infancy, preventing the nourishment of all the tissues 
affecting the spinal column and the rest of the bones. There 
was no mention in his case of scrofula, but the second child, 
the chatterbox, was eaten up by scrofula. Three doctors 
were sent to see him, Desault, Chopart, and Doublet. It is 
hinted that it proved a dangerous mission. All three shortly 
after died suddenly. The principal pupil of Desault, Dr. 
Abeille, went off to America for safety, and subsequently 
affirmed in an American paper ("The Bee"), that his master 
had been poisoned, because having seen the prince in hap- 
pier times he had not recognized him in the child he was 
called upon to visit in the Temple, and had had the impru- 
dence to say so. Another physician and Dr. Desault's 
widow have made a similar declaration. 

The behavior of the Committee of Public Safety was also 
singular. At first it kept the death a secret. Then it caused 
2. post-mortem examination to be made to satisfy those who 
might imagine that the dauphin had died a violent death. 
The Convention had every reason for wishing to establish, 



THE FATE OF LOUIS XVII. 413 

as a fact, the death of the young king ; and yet not a single 
person who had ever known the dauphin Uving was called to 
identify the dead child's remains, though his sister was in the 
Temple and members of the Royal Household were in the 
power of the authorities. 

The only people summoned to identify the remains were 
the municipal guards on duty at the Temple, about twenty 
men, and, according to the official document, " the greater 
part attested that they recognized Little Capet because they 
had seen him formerly at the Tuileries." The child died at 
the age of ten, and for five years before his death he had 
been little seen by the Parisians, the queen having been un- 
willing to present herself with her children before the public 
eye. If these men had indeed seen the dauphin at the Tui- 
leries when he was five or six years old, what was the worth 
of their recognition of the dead body of a ten years old 
child worn out by suffering? 

^\\Q. proch verbal — that is, the official document concern- 
ing the death — was curiously worded. It says : " We saw on 
a bed the dead body of a child, who appeared to us about ten 
years old, which the commissioner told us was that of the 
deceased Louis Capet." It went on to say that the scrofula 
must have been of long standing, but mentions no marks 
about the body which all the court knew to be upon the 
person of the dauphin. 

The man who announced the death to the Convention in 
the name of the Committee of Public Safety assured his 
hearers " that everything had been verified and all the 
documents placed in their archives." 

This was not true. No one has ever seen the originals of 
these documents. A copy, on a loose sheet of paper (con- 
trary to the law of 1792), was among the city archives, and 
was burnt up when the Hotel de Ville was destroyed by the 
Communists in 1872. What is still more remarkable is that 
Covin was not called upon to sign what is called " the 
act of decease." It was signed by one Bigot, a man totally 
unknown to the public, who called himself '' a friend of the 
King of France." 



414 '^HE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The interment was also singular. The archivist of the 
pohce afifirmed that " it was secret, and in some sort clan- 
destine." But Voisin, undertaker for the Section of the 
Temple, says : — 

I. That the coffin was not closed in the Temple. 

IL That the four men who were concerned in the burial 
died sudden and mysterious deaths. 

The theory advanced is that while the coffin lay unclosed 
after official inspection of the child who died of scrofula, the 
real prince, who had been hidden away in some corner of 
the Temple, and waited on by Laurent at first, and after- 
wards by some other man, may have been placed in the 
coffin, and so carried out of the Temple. The coffin was 
not carried in a hearse, but in a furniture wagon. The child 
may have been taken out of it on the way to the cemetery, 
and something heavy substituted. A watch for three days 
was placed over the graveyard. 

An old Member of the Committee of Public Safety has 
affirmed in writing that the boy who died of scrofula was 
secretly buried at the foot of one of the towers of the 
Temple ; and General d'Andigne, seven years later, being 
confined in the Temple and permitted to amuse himself 
with gardening, testifies that he found there a small skeleton, 
that had been buried in quicklime. 

The names of the two children substituted for the prince 
are known. M. Charles Tardif twice affirmed that he fur- 
nished the dumb boy. As to the scrofulous child who died 
June 8, 1795, his mother, Mademoiselle Lamonger, fled with 
another child, a daughter, to Martinique, the native island 
of Josephine de Beauharnais, and they did not come back 
to France as long as the Bourbons were in power 

All these things did not take place without rousing sus- 
picion. Children were arrested on the roads out of Paris 
under the idea that they might be the dauphin'. The leaders 
of the royalist party in La Vende'e refused to believe in his 
death, and would not acknowledge Louis XVIIL as their 
king, Charette, the Vendean leader at that date, thus apos- 
trophizes Louis XVII., in a celebrated order to his forces : 



THE FATE OF LOUIS XVIL 415 

" Hardly by the fall of Robespierre wast thou delivered from 
the ferocity of the extreme Jacobins, when thou becamest 
the victim of thy natural defenders." 

But what, then, became of Louis XVIL ? 

The political party which in 1795 succeeded the Reign of 
Terror, and the Provisional Government of the Commune 
of Paris, was willing enough to favor the child's escape. 
A time might come when in their hands he might be played 
off against Louis XVIII. But his existence and recognition 
were above all unwelcome to his uncle and his partisans. 
The Due de Bourbon, prince of the blood, writes thus to 
Cond^ : " Rumors are becoming rife that the little king did 
not die in the Temple. True or false, this would be for us 
a serious embarrassment, if the rumors should take any 
consistency." 

In the camp of the emigres at Coblentz were numerous 
noblemen and gentlemen whose lands had been confiscated, 
and who had accustomed themselves to look to the Comte de 
Provence as the man who would restore them. They could 
make no use of a child ten years of age as an active head of 
their party. Far better for them that, if living, his existence 
should be denied. They had accustomed themselves to 
speak of Louis XVI. with small respect, and to place all their 
hopes upon his brother. Goguelat (the unlucky Goguelat 
of the Flight to Varennes) who had escaped to Coblentz, 
wrote : " I never heard Louis XVI. spoken of with so much 
irreverence as by these men. They call him a poor creature, 
a mere chip ; a bigot only good to say his prayers. And 
their opinions, I am told, emanate from the personal follow- 
ers of Monsieur, who has set them afloat." 

Had Louis XVIL suddenly appeared among his supporters 
even in La Vendue, their first enthusiasm would soon have 
been damped by a feeling of his uselessness to help their 
cause. 

The child would have been unwelcome to the Allies, even 
to Austria, whose ministers, as we have seen, were eager to 
make peace. Louis XVIIL, who hated Marie Antoinette, had 
not scrupled long before to hint that he believed her son to 



41 6 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

be a bastard. He would certainly have treated him as such 
had he fallen into his hands. Clearly the best thing to be 
done with the poor child was to hide him away till the time 
came for the restoration of the monarchy, which Barras, in 
common with most men, believed to be at hand. Then he 
could be played off against Louis XVIII. Barras could not 
foresee the ten years of the Empire that would precede the 
Restoration, or imagine that his friend Josephine (in posses- 
sion of his State secret, if not, indeed, his partner in it) would 
be seated on a throne as empress of half Europe. 

The paper from which this account is copied gives a 
whole column to the names of persons who have testified to 
some knowledge of the substitution of other children for 
Louis XVII., and of his being spirited away from the Temple. 
Among these names is that of a Marquise de Broglie-Solari, 
attached to the household of Marie Antoinette, and to that 
of the Princesse de Lamballe. This lady testified that she 
heard it in 1803 from Barras, and in 18 19 and 1820 from 
Queen Hortense, the daughter of Josephine. 

There is reason to think that Josephine knew the story 
and believed it. Of late years papers have been written to 
attribute her sudden and somewhat mysterious death to 
that inconvenient knowledge. 

The paper from which I have copied these details be- 
lieves that Naundorff, the soi-disant Duke of Normandy, 
may have been Louis XVII. ; but it owns that there are 
important links wanting in his story between 1795 and 
1810. 

The Comtesse d'Adhemar, Qx-dame du palais of Marie 
Antoinette, wrote: "Assuredly I do not wish to multiply 
the chances of impostors, but in writing this in the month 
of May, 1799, I certify, on my soul and conscience, that 
I am positively certain that Sa Majeste Louis XVII. did 
not die in the Temple." 

The Duchesse d'Angouleme was never convinced of 
her brother's death, though she was obliged, from motives 
of policy, to acquiesce in the view taken by the male 
members of her family. The Vicomte de Rochejacquelin 




DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME. 



THE FATE OF LOUIS XVII. 417 

wrote to her on the subject : " Though we may believe 
that the unhappy child was withdrawn from the cruelty 
of his persecutors, and that, to save his life, he was 
obliged to live in obscurity, such a life would make him 
little suitable to be recognized as heir to the French 
monarchy ; and, in short, in the condition of Europe, it is 
quite conceivable that it would have been useless to bring 
forward Louis XVII., and that his death, and the deaths 
of those that supported him, would have been the con- 
sequence." 

It is said that to the Treaty of 181 4 between France and 
the Allies, which restored Louis XVIII. to the throne, there 
was this secret article : — 

" The contracting parties reserve their liberty to assist in 
mounting on the French throne him who they may conceive 
has the more legitimate right to it." 

It is certain that Josephine said to the Emperor Alexander, 
" You may re-establish royalty, but you will not re-establish 
legitimacy." A peer of France has recorded in his souve- 
nirs that in April, 1814, one month before the death of the 
Empress Josephine, he had seen documents " which con- 
tained secrets calculated to upset European diplomacy, if 
they ever came to light." He implored Josephine to destroy 
them. 

" No," she said ; " my resolution is fixed. I shall com- 
municate these papers to the Emperor Alexander. He is 
just, I know, and will wish that everything should be put in its 
right place {sera mis dans son rang). He will look after the 
interests of an unfortunate young man." " I made no further 
objection," added the narrator, " Josephine acted as she 
thought best, and told what it had been better for her to have 
kept secret. . . . Her sudden death, a week after, took an 
important witness out of the way." 

It may be added that on the very night of her death, 
which the three physicians who attended her attributed to 
poison, all her papers, on a frivolous pretext, were seized 
by the police, and the larger part of them were never 
restored. 

27 



4 1 8 THE FRENCH RE VOL UTION. 

As soon as the empress was dead, it was rumored in 
Paris that she had known the circumstances of the dauphin's 
disappearance from the Temple ; that she had even had 
a hand in it ; and that in a secret interview with the Em- 
peror Alexander it had been agreed between them that the 
affairs of France should be provisionally settled until the son 
of Louis XVI. should be discovered, when the Emperor 
Alexander "reserved to himself the right " to do him the 
justice that was legitimately his due. With this the secret 
clause in the Treaty of 1814, already quoted, would seem to 
agree. 

Louis Blanc says : " After the Restoration, which placed 
Louis XVIIL on the throne, the recovery of Louis XVII. 
would have caused incalculable embarrassments. This being 
the case, a government by no means scrupulous could very 
easily overlook family considerations, in virtue of reasons of 
state, whether it knew the truth, or preferred to ignore it." 

The most remarkable proof that Louis XVIIL did not 
believe in his nephew's death was, that when he raised 
the Chapelle Expiatoire to the memory of Louis XVI. and 
Marie Antoinette, he took no notice of the death of Louis 
XVII. But the Duchesse d'Angouleme seems always to 
have had it in her heart that she might recover traces of her 
lost brother. Not that it would have been in her power to 
do anything to restore him to his position : and her acknowl- 
edgment of his rights would have destroyed those of her 
husband, her father-in-law, her uncle, and her great-nephew, 
the Due de Bordeaux. 

On leaving the Temple in 1796 the princess wrote to her 
uncle, speaking of the Jacobins, " They have compassed the 
deaths of my father, and my mother, and my aunt." She 
does not mention her brother. Again in 1801, when General 
d'Andigne had discovered the httle skeleton in the Temple 
garden, and was anxious to speak of it to the Duchesse 
d'Angouleme, he was not permitted to have an interview 
with her. She told Comte de Feys when search was being 
made for the dauphin's body in the Cemetery of Ste. Mar- 
guerite, "that from the first she had not been sure of her 



THE FATE OF LOUIS XVII. 419 

brother's death in the Temple, but that she at last knew what 
had become of him." 

There was not only no monument erected to Louis XVII. 
in the Chapelle Expiatoire, but a funeral service to his 
memory, that was to have taken place at St. Denis, was 
never held. The Bishop of Mouhns has told us that his 
father (at that time Grand Master of Ceremonies), having 
asked Louis XVIII. the reason, received this answer, " We 
do not feel sure of the death of my nephew." 

There was a superstition among the French clergy that all 
the misfortunes that fell fast on the Royal Bourbons after 
their restoration were a judgment upon them for the non- 
recognition of Louis XVII. The Secretary-General of the 
Diocese of Strasburg said that the certainty Monsignor Tarin 
had of the existence of Louis XVII. led him to give up his 
position as tutor to the Due de Bordeaux. " Monsignor," 
said the Marquis de Nicolai, one day to him, " the royal 
family believes as much as you or I do that Louis XVII. 
is still living." 

Of course many pretenders appeared after the Restoration. 
The most plausible one was Naundorff, — soi-disant Duke of 
Normandy, who revealed himself to Silvio Pellico in their 
prison at Turin, and whose history forms an interesting 
chapter in Pelhco's sad but delightful book " Le mie Prigioni." 

In the days of Louis Phihppe a pale, quiet, gentleman- 
like man, with a somewhat Bourbon expression of counte- 
nance, might be seen in legitimist salons, treated with respect 
as the lost king. He had indeed some of the marks on his 
person known to have been on that of the poor little 
dauphin, but not on the body of the scrofulous child who 
represented him in the Temple. He did not attempt to 
conceal that he had worked at watchmaking in Switzerland, 
or that he had been several times in prison. He spoke 
French with a strong German accent, and was a Protes- 
tant. "More shame to the Church," said a French writer 
who believed in him, "that she had not come forward to 
protect him from error." 

He had married the uneducated daughter of a Prussian 



420 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

corporal, and had several vulgar children. He was com- 
pelled by the police to leave France, and took refuge in 
England. 

As Duke of Normandy, he was often to be seen in Hyde 
Park. He pursued some scientific labors at Woolwich in 
shells and artillery. He got into trouble at last with the 
London police, and, with his family, crossed to Holland, 
where he died at Delft in 1841. 

As I have said, I do not think that Naundorff was the 
dauphin, though many persons, in their certainty that the 
dauphin had not died in the Temple, and their uncertainty 
as to what had become of him, believed in him as such. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE LOST PRINCE. 

A S preliminary to this chapter I venture to relate an 
-^~*- experience of my own. In the autumn of 1841, when 
I was a young girl of nineteen, I came out to Boston to spend 
thewinter with my father's and mother's friends, Mr. and Mrs. 
George Ticknor, and to go into society with their daughter, 
a debutante^ somewhat younger than myself. The happiness 
of that delightful visit this is not the place to dwell upon. 

Some weeks before Christmas it was announced that the 
Prince de Joinville, who, after bringing back the body of 
Napoleon from St. Helena a year before, had brought his 
ship, the " Belle Poule," to America, was coming to Boston. A 
great ball was to be given to him and his officers in Faneuil 
Hall, and the young girls in good society were much elated 
at the prospect. The day fixed upon drew near. The of- 
ficers of the " Belle Poule " assembled in Boston, but there was 
no prince, — no certain news of him. Where could he be? 
His officers, on being questioned, could only say that they 
believed him to be in western New York, near the frontier 
of Canada. Had he gone on a hunting expedition? Very 
probably. But the impression left on many minds was that 
as the Prince de Joinville was at that day credited with being 
a fire-eater, and especially an enemy to John Bull, he might 
be making some sort of warlike reconnaissance along the 
Canadian border. At any rate there was mystery in his pro- 
ceedings ; his movements were kept secret both as regarded 
the public and his own officers. 

The day before the ball arrived ; still no prince ! How 
could we have the ball without him ? Speculation and ex- 
pectation rose high among us. On the morning of the ball, 
however, we heard that the prince had arrived. 



422 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

It was a beautiful ball, — I think the most beautiful ball I 
ever attended, with its chalked floor, its tricolor decorations, 
and its admirable music. Fifty-seven years have passed since 
then, but I well recall the scene, and now proceed to give an 
answer to the question then asked on all sides, but never 
answered till 1853, when the celebrated paper, " Have we a 
Bourbon among us?" appeared in "Putnam's Monthly," 
then a new magazine. Where was the prince while we were 
all so anxiously expecting him ? 

He was off at Green Bay, Wisconsin, seeking an interview 
with the Rev. Eleazer Williams. Here is Mr. Williams's own 
account of what passed between him and the Prince de 
Joinville : — 

" In October, 1841, I was on my way from Buffalo to 
Green Bay, and took a steamer from the former place bound 
to Chicago, which touched at Mackinac and left me there to 
wait the arrival of the steamer from Buffalo to Green Bay. 
Vessels which had recently come in announced the speedy 
arrival of the Prince de Joinville ; public expectation was on 
tiptoe, and crowds were on the wharves. The steamer at 
length came in sight, salutes were fired and answered, the 
colors run up, and she came into port in fine style. Imme- 
diately she touched, the prince and his retinue came on shore 
and went out some little distance from the town, perhaps half 
a mile, to visit some natural curiosities in the neighborhood, 
— the Sugar Loaf Rock and the Arch Rock. The steamer 
awaited their return. During their absence I was standing 
on the wharf among the crowd, when the captain, John 
Shook, now at Huron, Ohio, who will confirm my statement,-^ 
came up to me and asked whether I was going to Green 
Bay, adding that the Prince de Joinville had made inquiries 
of him concerning a Rev. Mr. Williams, and that he had told 
the prince he knew such a man, referring to me, who he sup- 
posed must be the man the prince meant, though he could 
not imagine what the prince could know or want of me. I 
replied to the captain in a laughing way, without having an 
idea of the deep meaning attached to my words : ' Oh, I 
1 And did so fully. — E. W. L. 




' ---^fir- 



REV. ELEAZEK WILLIAMS. 



THE LOST PRINCE. 423 

am a great man, and great men will of course seek me.' 
Soon after this the prince and his suite arrived and went on 
board. I did the same, and the steamer put to sea. It .was, 
I think, about two o'clock when we left Mackinac. When we 
were fairly on the water the captain came to me and said, 
' The prince, Mr. Williams, requests me to say that he desires 
to have an interview with you, and will be happy to have you 
either to come to him, or allow me to introduce him to you.' 
' Present my compliments to the prince,' I said, ' and say that 
I put myself entirely at his disposal, and will be proud to 
accede to whatever may be his wishes in the matter.' The 
captain retired, and soon returned, bringing the Prince de 
Joinville with him. I was sitting at the time on a barrel. 
The prince not only started with evident and involuntary 
surprise when he saw me, but there was great agitation in his 
face and manner, — a slight paleness and a quivering in 
the lip, — which I could not help remarking at the time, but 
which struck me more forcibly afterwards, in connection with 
the whole train of circumstances, and by contrast with his 
usual self-possessed manner. He then shook me earnestly 
and respectfully by the hand, and drew me immediately into 
conversation. The attention which he paid me seemed to 
astonish not only myself and the passengers, but also the 
prince's retinue. At dinner there was a separate table for 
the prince and his companions, and he invited me to sit with 
them, and offered me the place of honor at his side, but I 
begged the prince to excuse me and permit me to dine at 
the ordinary table with the other passengers ; which accord- 
ingly I did. After dinner the conversation turned between 
us on the first French settlements in America, the valor and 
enterprise of the early adventurers, and the loss of Canada to 
France, of which the prince expressed deep regret. In the 
course of his remarks, — though in what connection I can- 
not now say, — he told me he had left his suite at Albany, 
taken a private conveyance, and gone to the head of Lake 
George. He was very copious and fluent in speech, and I 
was surprised at the good English he spoke, — a little broken, 
indeed, like mine, but still very intelligible. We continued 



424 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

talking late into the night, reclining in the cabin on the 
cushions at the stern end of the boat. When we retired to 
rest the prince lay on the locker, and I in the first berth next 
to it. The next day the steamer did not arrive at Green 
Bay till about two o'clock, and during most of that time we 
were in conversation. Looking back thoughtfully at what 
was said, I can now perceive that the prince was preparing 
my mind for what was to come at last, although then the dif- 
ferent subjects seemed, to arise naturally enough. At first 
he spoke on the condition of affairs in the United States 
and in the American Revolution. He expressed admiration 
of our institutions, and spoke at large of the assistance that 
had been rendered to the colonies in their struggle with the 
mother-country, by Louis XVL He said that he did not 
think sufficient gratitude was evinced by Americans to that 
monarch, and that whenever his intervention was alluded to, 
it was attributed to selfish motives and to a desire to humble 
the power of England on the continent by depriving her of 
her fairest colonial possessions ; but that in his opinion Louis 
XVL felt a true regard for America, and that on every return 
of the Fourth of July, when throughout the United States the 
nation was celebrating its independence, there should be an 
especial salute fired to the memory of the king who had con- 
tributed so much to the result. Such was the substance of 
what was said by the prince on that subject. He then turned 
to the French Revolution, and said that Louis XVL was 
innocent of any tyrannical ideas towards the people of France, 
and that nothing he had done personally could justify or ex- 
cuse the excesses of the Revolution ; that the last foundations 
of that event were laid in the preceding reign, and that the 
misconduct and misgovernment of Louis XV. were charge- 
able to a very great extent with the sad events that had 
occurred, although the storm had been slowly brewing for 
centuries. The people of France, though they had no just 
cause to complain personally of Louis XVL, had a right to 
do so of the oppressive institutions then existing, of the 
tyranny of the aristocracy, and of the burdens laid upon 
them by the Church. He then referred to the change 



THE LOST PRINCE. 



425 



that had since taken p]ace in the form of government, and 
to the present amelioration of the condition of the French 
people, under an elective monarchy. On our arrival at 
Green Bay, the prince said I would oblige him by accom- 
panying him to his hotel and taking up my quarters at the 
Astor House. I begged to be excused, as I wished to visit 
my father-in-law. He replied that he had some matters of 
great importance that he wished to speak to me about, and 
that as he could not stay long at Green Bay, but would take 
his departure the next day or the day after, he wished I would 
comply with his request. A number of persons were at the 
Astor House waiting to see the prince, so I declined to re- 
main, but promised to return in the evening, when he would 
be more private. I did so, and on my return found the 
prince alone, with the exception of one attendant, whom he 
dismissed. The gentlemen of the party were in an adjoining 
room, laughing and carousing, and I could distinctly hear 
them during my interview with the prince. He opened the 
conversation by saying that he had a communication to make 
to me of a very serious nature as concerned himself, and 
of the last importance to me ; that it was one in which no 
others were interested, and, therefore, before proceeding 
further he wished to obtain some pledge of secrecy, some 
promise that I would not reveal to any one what he was 
going to say. I demurred to any such conditions being im- ^ 
posed previous to my being made acquainted with the nature 
of the subject, as there might be something in it, after all, pre- 
judicial and injurious to others, and it was at length, after 
some altercation, agreed that I should pledge my honor not 
to reveal what the prince was going to say, provided there 
was nothing in it prejudicial to any one ; and I signed a 
promise to this effect on a sheet of paper. It was vague and 
general, for I would not tie myself down to absolute secrecy, 
but left the matter conditional. When this was done, the 
prince spoke to this effect : — 

" ' You have been accustomed, sir, to consider yourself a 
native of this country ; but you are not. You are of foreign 
descent. You were born in Europe, sir, and, however in- 



426 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

credible it may at first seem to you, I have to tell you that 
you are the son of a king. There ought to be much conso- 
lation to you to know this fact. You have suffered a great 
deal, and have been brought very low, but you have not 
suffered more, or been more degraded, than my father, who 
was long in exile and in poverty in this country ; but there 
is this difference between him and you, that he was all along 
aware of his high birth, whereas you have been spared the 
knowledge of your origin.' 

" When the prince had said this I was much overcome, and 
thrown into a state of mind which you can easily imagine. 
In fact, I hardly knew what to do or say, and my feelings 
were so much excited that I was like one in a dream, and 
much was said between us of which I can give but an indis- 
tinct account. However, I remember that I told him his 
communication was so unexpected and so startling that he 
must forgive me for being incredulous, and that really I was 
between two. ' What do you mean,' he said, ' by being 
" between two "? ' 

" I replied that, on the one hand, it seemed to me that 
he could scarcely believe what he said ; and, on the other, 
I feared he might be under some mistake as to the per- 
son. He assured me, however, that he would not trifle with 
my feelings on such a subject, but that he spoke the simple 
truth, and that in regard to the identity of the person he had 
ample means in his possession to satisfy me that there was 
no mistake in that respect. I then requested him to pro- 
ceed with the disclosure already partly made, and to inform 
me in full of the secret of my birth. He replied that in 
doing so it was necessary that a certain process should be 
gone through, in order to guard the interests of all parties 
concerned. I inquired what kind of process he meant? 
Upon this the prince rose and went to his trunk, which was 
in the room, and took from it a parchment, which he laid on 
the table, and set before me that I might read, and give him 
my determination with regard to it. There was also on the 
table pen and ink, and wax, and he placed there three 
governmental seals of France, — one, if I mistake not, of 



THE LOST PRINCE. 



427 



the old monarchy. It was of precious metal, but whether 
of gold or silver, or a compound of both, I cannot say, for 
my mind was so bewildered and agitated and engrossed with 
one absorbing question that things which at another time 
would have made a strong impression on me were scarcely 
noticed, though I must confess that when I knew the whole, 
the sight of that seal, put before me by a member of the 
family of Orleans, stirred my indignation. 

" The document which the prince placed before me was 
very handsomely written in double parallel columns of 
French and English. I continued intently reading and 
considering it for a space of four or five hours. During 
this time the prince left me undisturbed, remaining for 
the most part in the room ; but he went out three or four 
times. 

"The purport of the document, which I read repeatedly 
word by word, comparing the French with the English, was 
this : it was a solemn abdication of the crown of France 
in favor of Louis Philippe, by Charles Louis, the son of 
Louis XVL, who was styled Louis XVIL, King of France 
and Navarre, with all accompanying names and titles of 
honor, according to the custom of the old French mon- 
archy, together with a minute specification in legal phrase- 
ology of the conditions, considerations, and provisos upon 
which the abdication was made. These conditions were, in 
brief, that a princely establishment should be secured to me, 
either in France or in this country, at my option, and that 
Louis Philippe would pledge himself on his part to secure 
the restoration, or the equivalent for it, of all the private 
property of the royal family, rightfully belonging to me, 
which had been confiscated in France during the Revolu- 
tion, or in any way got into other hands. Now you may 
ask me why I did not retain at all hazards this document, or 
at any rate take a copy of it. A day or two afterwards all such 
points came to my mind, but at the moment I thought of 
nothing except the question of acceptance or rejection. 
And then, remember the sudden manner in which this whole 
affair came upon me, and the natural timidity and bashful- 



428 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

ness of one who had always considered himself of most ob- 
scure rank, when called without preparation to discuss such 
topics with a man of high position like the prince. Besides 
which, my word of honor had been so lately pledged, and a 
sense of personal dignity excited by the disclosures of the 
prince, so that I never so much as thought of taking any 
advantage of the circumstances, but only whether I should . 
sign my name and set my seal to a deliberate surrender of 
my rights and those of my family. It was a deeply painful 
and harrowing time, and I cannot describe, nor could any 
one imagine, how I felt when trying to decide this question. 
At length I made my decision and rose and told the prince 
that I had considered the matter fully in all its aspects, and 
was prepared to give him my definite answer. Then I went 
on to say that whatever might be the personal consequences 
to myself, I felt that I could not be the instrument of barter- 
ing away, with my own hand, the rights pertaining to me by 
my birth, and sacrificing the interests of my family, and that 
I. could only give to him the answer made by the Comte 
de Provence to the ambassadors of Napoleon at Warsaw, 
'Though I am 'in poverty and exile, I will not sacrifice my 
honor.' 

" The prince upon this assumed a loud tone and accused 
me of ingratitude in trampling on the overtures of the king, 
his father, who, he said, in making the proposal, was actu- 
ated more by feelings of pity and kindness towards me than 
by any other consideration, since his claim to the French 
throne rested on an entirely different basis to mine, — not 
that of hereditary descent, but of popular election. When 
he spoke in this strain I spoke loud, too, and said that as he 
by his disclosure had put me in the position of a superior, I 
must assume that position, and frankly say that my indigna- 
tion was stirred by the memory that one of the family of 
Orleans had imbrued his hands in my father's blood, and 
that another now wished to obtain from me an abdication of 
the throne. 

" When I spoke of superiority the prince immediately as- 
sumed a respectful attitude, and remained silent for several 



THE LOST PRINCE. 429 

minutes. It had now grown very late, and we parted with 
a request from him that I would reconsider the proposal of 
his father, and not be too hasty in my decision. I returned 
to my father-in-law's, and the next day saw the prince again, 
and on his renewal of the subject gave him a similar answer. 
Before he went away, he said, ' Though we part, I hope we 
part friends.' 

" For years I said little on the subject, until I received a 
letter in 1848 from Mr. Kimball, dated at Baton Rouge, in- 
forming me that a Frenchman named Bellenger had made a 
statement on his deathbed that he had brought the dauphin, 
son of Louis XVI., from France, and placed him at the 
north among the Indians. And then when this report came 
from the south confirming what the prince had said, the thing 
seemed to me to assume a different aspect. Mr. Kimball's 
letter is, I think, among my papers at Green Bay ; but at any 
rate I have for years kept a minute journal of everything 
that has occurred to me, and I have no doubt I have an 
abstract of it at Hogansburg." 

Such is Mr. Williams's story, given to the Rev. Mr. Hanson 
in the presence of Dr. Hawks, the eloquent preacher and 
historian, in Dr. Hawks's study in New York, in 1852. 

Of Mr. Williams, Dr. Hawks says : " I know him very 
well. He is a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
whose labors have been almost entirely those of a missionary 
among the Indians. He is of good standing as a clergyman, 
and is esteemed a man of truth among his acquaintance, 
and those with whom he has longest lived, all bearing abun- 
dant and satisfactory testimony that Mr. Williams has al- 
ways been considered a worthy and truthful man. I may 
add to this my own statement that in all my intercourse with 
him I have never found reason to doubt the correctness of 
his neighbors and acquaintance, in their testimony to his 
character as stated above. 

" From personal knowledge I am able to say that there is 
a remarkable simplicity both of manner and character in Mr. 
Williams. He possesses an ordinary share of intellectual 
power, with but little quickness, however, of grouping facts 



43 O THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: 

that bear on a central point, and is witliout much readiness in 
deducing conclusions from them. He is incapable of fram- 
ing a mass of circumstantial testimony, made up of a com- 
bination of many isolated facts. To do this requires genius 
and a high inventive faculty. 

" Indeed, nothing has struck me more forcibly in the con- 
versations I have had with Mr. Williams on the facts recorded 
in Mr. Hanson's narrative than his seemingly entire non- 
perception of the bearing of many facts therein as testimony, 
and their coincidence with other events known to him, until 
these were pointed out to him. And sometimes he could 
not be made, even then, to comprehend readily the indi- 
cated relations. When, however, he did comprehend the 
relations, his countenance would hght up with a smile, and he 
would say, ' I see it now, but I never saw it before.' 

" I have found him uniformly amiable and gentle in man- 
ner, and to all appearance a truly pious man. 

" In short, a knowledge of the man has seemed to me to 
be an important part of the story he tells ; his temperament, 
disposition, mental operations, etc., all go to establishing one 
of the facts explanatory of some of the particulars in the 
narrative. 

" Whether the historical problem presented by Mr. Hanson 
be here solved, is a matter which I will not undertake to 
decide. The only points on which I would speak with cer- 
tainty are two : first, Mr, Williams is not an Indian, and, 
secondly, he is not able to invent a complicated mass of cir- 
cumstantial evidence to sustain a fabricated story." 

We may now ask what was the history of Mr. Williams? 
He was brought when a child about ten years old, by two 
Frenchmen, one a layman, the other apparently a Roman 
Catholic priest, to Ticonderoga, where was a settlement of 
Iroquois Indians, and he was adopted into the family of 
Thomas Williams, an Indian with white blood in his veins. 
A short time before that a Frenchman and a lady had visited 
Albany with a boy and girl in their company. The boy 
they called Monsieur Louis ; and he was Jion coinpos mentis, 



THE LOST PRINCE. 43 I 

as was the child shortly after confided to Thomas Williams, 
who ill this state continued till he was thirteen or fourteen 
years of age. 

"Have you no memory," he was asked more than fifty 
years later, " of what happened in Paris, or on your voyage 
to this country?" "Therein," he replied, "is the mystery 
of my life. Everything that occurred to me is blotted out, 
erased entirely, irretrievably gone. My mind is a blank till 
I was thirteen or fourteen years of age. You must imagine a 
child who, as far as he knows anything, was an idiot, destitute 
even of consciousness that can be remembered at that 
period. He was bathing in Lake George among a group of 
Indian boys. He clambered with the fearlessness of idiocy 
up to the top of a high rock. He plunged down head fore- 
most into the water. He was taken up insensible and laid 
in an Indian hut. He was brought to life. He was con- 
scious of blue sky, mountains, and waters. That was the first 
I knew of life." Still, vague dreamy memories in after years 
would sometimes seem to cross his mind, as when a por- 
trait of Simon was once shown him carelessly. He became 
greatly excited and cried out, " My God ! I know that face. 
It has haunted me all my life." 

The story of the boy's idiocy and recovery was well 
known among the Indians and white men of that region, 
and has been corroborated abundantly. 

The Williams family, with whom the boy was placed, had 
a singular history. In 1704 the Rev. John Williams, a 
Puritan minister at Deerfield, Massachusetts, was captured 
with all his family by French and Indians, and carried to 
the neighborhood of Montreal. They all returned to civiliza- 
tion except one daughter, Eunice, who married an Indian 
chief; by him she had two daughters, Mary and Catherine, 
and a son John. Mary married an English surgeon named 
Ezekiel Williams. They had one son Thomas, their only 
child. His parents dying when he was young, he was cared 
for by his aunt Catherine, and was considered an Indian of the 
Iroquois tribe, by virtue of his descent from his grandfather. 
He attached himself to the Iroquois, renouncing civilized 



432 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

life. He married a full-blooded Indian woman, and had 
eleven children besides Eleazer, who was reputed to be his 
son, and as such was brought up by him. All the undoubted 
children of Thomas Williams were strongly marked Indians, 
notwithstanding the white blood in their veins. They bore 
not the slightest resemblance to Eleazer. 

After some time a proposition was made by the Williams 
family in Massachusetts to pay for the education of one of 
the boys. John was sent to Long Meadows in Massa- 
chusetts, to a certain Deacon Ely, and Eleazer went with 
him. Every six months the bills for Eleazer's board and 
tuition were promptly and punctually paid by a different 
agent from the one who paid the bills of John Williams. 

John, Indian-like, did not take kindly to education and 
civilization, and was at last sent home as .unmanageable ; but 
Eleazer became a pet in the village. It was a common re- 
mark that he looked more like a Frenchman than an Indian. 
His skin was fair, and his eyes hazel. Though generally 
lively and cheerful, he was subject to fits of thoughtfulness 
and abstraction very unusual in a boy. He would at times 
sink into deep revery, and when asked the cause he would 
reply that there were painful ideas about his childhood which 
he could neither get rid of nor understand. 

On one occasion, according to a certificate given by an old 
lady in 1853, she remarked two scars upon his face, and on 
saying she supposed that he had got them in his infancy, he 
replied that they seemed to be connected in his mind with 
painful images which he did not like to dwell on and could 
not comprehend. 

Years before it had been told in an obscure book con- 
cerning the life of the dauphin in the Temple, that Simon, 
one day, when preparing to beat his little prisoner, snatched 
a towel from the wall so roughly that he pulled out a large 
nail. When with the towel he struck the child blows across 
the face, this nail inflicted two deep wounds exactly where 
scars remained visible on the face of Mr. Williams. It seems 
also that when the child was confided to the care of Thomas 
Williams and his wife, two boxes of clothing and other ob- 



THE LOST PRINCE, 433 

jects which might have identified him were left with them. 
One of these boxes was carried ofif by one of his reputed 
sisters on her marriage, and cannot be recovered. The 
other was removed by persons of influence to Montreal, 
where it is probably now in possession of the Roman Catho- 
lic authorities. In this box are known to have been three 
coins, — one gold, one silver, and one copper ; probably 
coronation medals struck at the coronation of Louis XVI. 
and Marie Antoinette. 

After Eleazer recovered his reason and before he was sent 
to school, two French gentlemen visited Thomas Williams at 
St. Regis. They sat together on a log while the boys were 
playing in a little canoe on the water. Attracted by the 
dress of the strangers, the lads landed and drew near them, 
when Williams called Eleazer from the group. One French- 
man and Williams got up and went away, leaving the boy 
with the other Frenchman, who was fondling him as he stood 
between his knees. The stranger wept and seemed greatly 
affected. He examined scars on the boy's knees and talked 
to him a great deal in French, of which Eleazer did not 
understand a word. Shordy after this interview arrangements 
were made for sending him to school in Massachusetts. 

The Williams family and the Indians among whom they 
lived at St. Regis were Roman Catholics, but Eleazer's 
education and associations in Massachusetts made him a 
Protestant. It may be here remarked en passant, that in the 
Parish Register of» St. Regis, where the births and baptisms 
of the eleven children of Thomas Williams and his wife are 
carefully recorded, there is no mention of Eleazer, nor is 
there any space between the births of boys born about 1785 
for the birth of another boy to have occurred. 

Eleazer's conversion to Protestantism was highly displeas- 
ing to the clergy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Montreal, 
and especially to Father Marcoux, the parish priest of 
Caughnawaga, to which place the Williams family removed. 
Many efforts were made to bring him back into the fold, and 
promises of high and rapid preferment were made to him if 
he would enter the priesthood. 

28 



434 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Caughnawaga is a straggling Indian village on the St. 
Lawrence within sight of Montreal. 

Eleazer continued his studies until the War of 1812 broke 
out with England, when he was appointed confidential agent 
and Superintendent-General of the Northern Indian Depart- 
ment. During the war he continued actively employed in 
the service of the United States, and fought, among other 
places, at the battle of Plattsburg, where in 18 14 he was 
wounded. General Cass strongly commended him to the 
consideration of the Hon. John Eaton, then Secretary of 
War, adding, " He is a gentleman of education and talents, 
and from his position and associations can render important 
services to the government and the Indians." 

During the war Eleazer Williams, having had frequent occa- 
sion to visit Albany, became acquainted with Lieutenant- 
Governor Taylor, and with some clergymen of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church. On the conclusion of the war he became 
intimate with Bishop Hobart, who ordained him in 1826, after 
he had been lay reader and missionary among the Indians at 
Oneida and Green Bay for about ten years. 

In the year 1823 he married Miss Mary Hobart Jourdan 
of Green Bay, a beautiful woman, a relative of Marshal Jour- 
dan, who under the French Republic conquered Belgium, 
and some German possessions on the left bank of the Rhine. 
They had three children, but in 1853 only one of them 
survived. 

Green Bay, where the Rev. Eleazer Williams long resided, 
is a small town in the wilderness, having a palisade fort. 
The town is surrounded by a few Indian settlements. St. 
Regis and Hogansburg, where Mr. Williams ministered, were 
both miserable, lonely spots. The missionary received no pay 
from the Indians, but had a small stipend from the Missionary 
Committee. The rigors of the climate are excessive, the 
thermometer being not unfrequently 30° below zero. " One 
can hardly fancy a situation more lonely, more unfriended, 
more desolate. Mr. Williams lives on the Indian reservation, 
a wild tract of woodland partially cleared here and there at 
the edges. Dead evergreen swamps, rude fences, half pros- 



THE LOST PRINCE. 435 

trate, surround his abode. There lives his reputed mother, 
whom he tenderly treats as if she were his parent. He has 
no church building, but is trying to erect at least a school- 
room on the Indian reservation." Thus writes one who 
visited the place in 1853. 

In this place Mr. Williams resided, earnest in his missionary 
labors, but occasionally visiting Boston and New York on 
business connected with his mission, until Oct. 18, 1841, 
when his peace was broken up by his meeting with the Prince 
de Joinville. From 1808 Mr. Williams had been in the habit 
of keeping a daily journal, a practice copied from Deacon 
Ely. By 1853 this journal amounted to many manuscript 
volumes. On Oct. 18, 1841, he records his meeting with 
the Prince de Joinville and an interesting conversation with 
him about the French in America and the French Revolu- 
tion. On October 19, he writes that the prince offered to 
take his son to Europe and provide for his education, also 
on hearing of a baby newly born that he proposed to give 
her his mother's name, Marie Amelie, and to stand her god- 
father. Then in the evening came the revelation, received 
by the astonished missionary with feelings he recorded in 
his journal. Here are part of the words in which he con- 
fided his thoughts to those secret pages : — 

" Although the unexpected intelligence is a new source of 
trouble which is already working in my inward soul with 
inexpressible trouble, which will accompany me to my grave, 
yet I trust that the Almighty arm, which has hitherto sustained 
me, will now protect me. To the God of my salvation I fly 
for comfort and consolation in this hour of my distress. Let 
Christ be all in all. Saviour of the world, have mercy upon 
Thy unworthy servant, and for the glory of Thy name turn 
from him all those evils that he most justly has deserved, and 
grant that in all his troubles he may put his whole trust and 
confidence in Thy mercy, and evermore serve Thee in holiness 
and purity of living to Thine honor and glory. All that I 
have heard I will lay up in my heart with the utmost secrecy." 
And he did so, not even for a long time telling his wife. 

Meantime he had an autograph letter from Louis Philippe;, 



436 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

thanking him for his kindness to the prince his son, and two 
or more letters from the prince's secretary relating to docu- 
ments bearing on the French settlements in Canada, which 
Mr. Williams had forwarded to Europe for him. In 1848, 
as I have said, he was startled by receiving a letter from 
Baton Rouge, informing him that a Frenchman named 
Bellenger had just died there, confessing on his death-bed 
that it was he who had brought the dauphin to America and 
left him among the Indians, adding that he had taken the 
most solemn oaths not to reveal what he had done with the 
child, but that times were altered, he was on his death- 
bed, and he did not hke to die with the weight of the 
secret he had kept for years. 

In 1853 the Rev. Mr. Hanson, becoming interested in 
the story, which had begun to leak out in newspaper 
paragraphs, met Mr. Williams. He was immediately much 
struck by his appearance, as indeed all men were who 
saw him. His features were decidedly European, also his 
air and carriage. His face was rather heavily moulded and 
also characterized by the full protuberant Austrian lips. 
His eyes were hazel, his hair dark, soft, and tinged with 
gray. His eyebrows were full, and of the same color. 
Over the left eye was a scar. His nostrils were large and 
finely cut, and he was inclined to embojipoint, — a char- 
acteristic of the Bourbons. 

My husband, Mr. Randolph B. Latimer, a few months 
before our marriage was introduced to the Rev. Eleazer 
Williams. The interview made a great impression on him ; 
he wrote me a full account of it at the time, and has repeated 
what he then told me for insertion in this volume : — 

" About the time that the question ' Is there a Bourbon 
among us ? ' was being discussed in this country, it was an- 
nounced that the Rev. Eleazer Williams would preach on 
Sunday evening at Mr. Killin's Church on West Lexington 
Street, Baltimore. I was interested in the subject, had read 
a great deal about it, and determined to go and see the sup- 
posed Louis XVII. and hear him preach. In the vestibule 
of the church I met Mr. Killin, whom I knew personally, and 



THE LOST PRINCE. 



437 



he was accompanied by a tall, portly, fine-looking man in the 
plain costume of an Episcopalian clergyman. Instantly I 
recognized him as the supposed Bourbon, and made him a 
bow, which he returned most graciously. As he remained in 
the vestibule I could not take my eyes off him, and could 
see in his face, figure, and manner nothing of the half-breed 
Indian, which some claimed he was, but a very decided re- 
semblance to the portraits of Louis XVI. and other members 
of the Bourbon family ; in fact, I could not help thinking 
that had he been clad in royal robes he would have 'looked 
every inch a king.' His sermon was a plain, practical one, 
his language simple, and his pronunciation rather more 
French than English, such as might be expected from a man 
who had passed his life doing missionary work among the 
Indians and half-breeds along our Canadian border, where 
French was used quite as much as English. His apparent 
age corresponded with what would have been that of the 
unfortunate prince, and I came away satisfied that he was 
the real Bourbon. His claim to the throne of France might 
have been substantiated, but he had no desire to raise it, and 
preferred the simple, useful life in which he lived and died." 

The publication of Mr. Hanson's article, " Have we a 
Bourbon among us?" in "Putnam's Magazine," Febru- 
ary, 1853, containing Eleazer Williams' own account of the 
revelation of the Prince de Joinville, naturally demanded 
either the silence that gives consent, or some kind of denial. 
This the prince himself has never made, but he instructed 
one of his secretaries to write to Mr. Putnam, saying he had 
indeed met an Indian missionary, whose name he had for- 
gotten, on his way to Green Bay, whither he went to make 
historical researches, and that they had had an interesting 
conversation on the boat concerning French settlements on 
the frontier of Canada. He remembered that the missionary 
had told him (as indeed Mr. Williams had done in their first 
day's conversation) that his mother was an Indian, but all 
the rest of their conversation as reported was pure fable ! 

And the man whose nai7ie he had forgotten was one to 
whom Louis Philippe had written with his own hand, to 



438 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

whom he himself had caused letters to be addressed, and 
about whom he had made inquiries of Mr. Ogden in New 
York, and of people all along his route to Green Bay, as 
there were many persons able and willing to testify ! 

A " superstitious reverence for truth," it has been said, must 
not be allowed to stand in the way of a satisfactory settlement 
of things of great importance. This probably was a lesson 
impressed on the Prince de Joinville when he returned disap- 
pointed to his father from his unsuccessful mission. 

The subject has been thus summed up by a second writer 
in " Putnam's Magazine," in February, 1854, in an article on 
the " Problem of the Lost Prince " : — 

"When Louis Philippe came to the throne, he inherited 
the obligation of looking after his cousin, the Lost Prince. 
He entertains perhaps the benevolent design of calling him 
home and treating him like a prince, on condition that he 
will resign all right to the throne, and he sends his son, the 
Prince de Joinville (a sailor, not a diplomatist), to treat with 
him for this object, not doubting, from his knowledge of his 
position, that his proposal ought to be, and probably would 
be, accepted. All this was perfectly natural.- It might per- 
haps be called generous and noble. Louis Philippe, having 
come to the throne by the choice of the people, could not 
impair his own rights or those of his family by treating with 
Mr. Williams ; and he was of course of the opinion (from 
which no one would dissent) that the idea of restoring the 
son of Louis XVL to the throne of his father, after all that 
had passed, could not be entertained for a moment in France 
by people of influence or by others. The mission of the 
Prince de Joinville, therefore, may have been prompted by 
humanity and benevolence. But it failed. And when the 
nature of it became public, the particulars concerning it 
being incapable on Mr. Williams' part of verification, for lack 
of witnesses, it would of course be denied from motives of 
policy." 

Of course Eleazer Williams was wholly unfitted to be King 
of France either in 1841 or 1854. To add to his disquali- 
fications, he was a Protestant missionary. The Rev. Father 



THE LOST PRINCE. 439 

Marcoux, whether of his own motion or prompted from with- 
out, succeeded in persuading the old Indian woman of 
ninety, the reputed mother of Eleazer Williams, that that un- 
fortunate heretic might become King of France, to the de- 
struction of many thousands of pious souls. Having thus 
friglitened her he took her before a magistrate at Hogans- 
burg, where she made an affidavit, speaking only Indian ; this 
was interpreted into English by Father Marcoux, no other 
person understanding both Enghsh and Indian being present. 
It was then read over to her in Indian, and she signed it 
with her mark. The document was at once taken to France 
by a M. de Courcey. It asserted that Eleazer Williams 
was her own son, and had never been confided to her hus- 
band's care by any Frenchman. 

When she was made subsequently to understand what she 
had sworn to, she went again before the same magistrate, 
stating the case and declaring that she had never intended 
to say the things to which she had signed her mark in the 
previous affidavit. 

In the three articles pubHshed in " Putnam's Magazine," 
Volumes I. and III., and in Mr. Hanson's very scarce book, 
" The Lost Prince," there are many more particulars and 
much argument, which, as I hold no brief in the case, I have 
not repeated. 

The particulars regarding the disappearance of the dau- 
phin from the Temple are more full in the article from 
" Figaro," and are there based on public documents. 

The idea of Mr. Hanson is that the substitution of the 
child who died of scrofula took place between May 31, 
1795, and June 5, four days when no one saw the boy 
but Laurent, Lasne, Gomin (or Covin), and Bellenger, 
who had just been appointed Commissary at the Temple. 
I may here remark that neither Williams nor Mr. Hanson 
had ever heard the name of Bellenger in connection with 
the prisoner in the Temple, until after his confession on his 
deathbed at Baton Rouge. During the first of those days in 
1795 Bellenger was a great deal with the child, trying to 
amuse him by pictures in a portfolio. 



440 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

The impression of the writer in " Putnam's Magazine " is 
that the disappearance of the dauphin from the Temple 
and his subsequent concealment was due to the intrigues of 
Louis XVIII., who had long plotted for the throne of 
France, and who years before had not scrupled to denounce 
his brother's son as a bastard. It is quite true that the pro- 
duction of a boy-king at that crisis in French history would 
have damaged the slender prospects of restoring the mon- 
archy. The " Figaro " thinks the disappearance of the 
dauphin was due to Barras. The two men placed over him 
in the spring of 1795, Lasne and Gomin (or Govin), were of 
different politics, though they seem to have acted together, 
Lasne being a republican,, and Govin, so far as he dared, 
a royalist. Bellenger was a man trusted by Louis XVIII. 
(when Comte de Provence), in whose service he had been 
as artist and designer. 

In 1795 or 1796 a French gentleman named Le Ray de 
Chaumont came to America from France and settled in 
St. Lawrence County, New York, where he lived in affluence 
and had much intercourse with the Indians of St. Regis 
and Hogansburg. In the year 18 18 there was a dinner- 
party at the house of Dr. Hosack in New York. Among 
the guests were Comte Jean d'Angely, Dr. John W. Francis, 
and Genet, brother of Madame Campan, ex- French ambassa- 
dor to the United States. In the course of conversation the 
subject of the dauphin was introduced, and inquiry was 
started concerning his fate. Then Genet distinctly said, 
" Gentlemen, the dauphin of France is not dead, but was 
brought to America." The conversation on this interesting 
'subject was continued for some time, and Genet informed 
the company among other things that he believed the dauphin 
was in Western New York, and that Le Ray de Chaumont 
knew all about it. 

Mrs. Brown, living in New Orleans in 1854 when the sub- 
ject of Eleazer Williams was attracting much attention, vol- 
untarily testified under oath that she had been wife to the 
Secretary of the Comte d'Artois (Charles X.) and had 
resided at Holyrood from 1804 to 1810; that she was 



THE LOST PRINCE. 



441 



admitted to some intimacy by the Duchesse d'Angouleme, 
who once told her that she knew the dauphin was aHve and 
in America. She also heard the name of WilHams in that 
connection. She adds that the royal family, while knowing 
that the dauphin was alive, always asserted that he was 
incompetent to reign. 

Another lady, wife to the secretary of the Comte de 
Coigny, had told Mrs. Brown, when they were speaking on 
the subject, that it had been much discussed in the royal 
palace ; that it was said the elevation of such a person to 
the throne would only increase the difiEculties of the times ; 
that a man had come from America to confer with the family 
on the subject ; that money had been given him, and he 
had returned to America. 

No doubt the Duchesse d'Angouleme, while a young per- 
son, supposed her brother to have perished in the Temple, 
and probably took Govin's account of his last hours as fact. 
But anybody reading M. Beauchesne's book, with its mar- 
vellous account of the last days of the poor child's life, can- 
not fail to be struck with the manifest fictitiousness of the 
accounts given "upon their sacred honor," in 1818 by 
Govin and Lasne. This account answered its purpose. It 
was desirable to prove the dauphin dead in 18 18. We have 
.seen already that the Duchesse d'Angouleme was never 
satisfied about her brother's death, even after Govin and 
Lasne had published their story, and that every fresh re- 
port concerning him greatly excited her. But yet, as an 
earnest Catholic, how could she have been willing to wel- 
come a Protestant missionary as heir to the French 
throne ? 

The Rev. Eleazer Williams died at Hogansburg, New 
York, August 27, 1858, aged seventy-three years. 



INDEX. 



Abbaye, massacre in the, 179-182. 
Abeille, Dr., opinion on escape of Louis 

XVII., 74. 
Adam, Adolphe, account of Feast of 

Supreme Being, quoted, 290-307. 
Adliemar, Comtesse d', on supposed 

death of Louis XVII., quoted, 416. 
Amadeus III. of Sardinia, reception of 

news of Louis X VI. 's execution, 220. 
Andoins, Captain d', 154, 155. 
Angoulenie, Duchesse d', account of 

separation of Marie Antoinette from 

lier son, quoted, 401, 402 ; lack of 

conviction as to her brother's death, 

416, 41S, 419; account of life in 

Temple, quoted, 233, 234, 235. 
" Appleton's Journal," mentioned in 

note, 116. 
Kxris,,fete at, in honor of Robespierre, 

Til^ 338- 
Artois, Comte d', description of, 133. 
August, tenth of, insurrection, 27-29 ; 

events leading to, 176-178. 
Ayen, Duchesse d', execution of, 395- 

400. 

B. 

Barras, 317, 409, 411, 412, 416. 
Barrere, direction of fSie to Supreme 

Being, 294, 295. 
Bastille, celebration of takmg of, 23-25 ; 

destruction of, 103-106 ; prisoners in 

when captured, 104. 
Berryer, M., lieutenant of police, 74, 

75. 76, n. 



Bicetre, destruction of, 106. 

Blanc, Louis, quoted, on Louis XVII., 
418. 

Blois, Henri Gregoire, Bishop of, first 
knowledge of, 355 ; political views, 
356 ; action in the States-General, 
357 ; appointment to bishopric, 357 ; 
public life, 357-361 ; death, 361. 

Bois de Boulogne, appearance in 1787, 
121. 

Boissy d'Anglas, on Rabaut, quoted, 

363- 
Bollman, Dr. Erick, share in escape 

of Lafayette, 376-378. 
Boufflers, Marquis de, lines on Marie 

Antoinette's faults, qitoted, 137. 
Bouille, General, 151, 155, 160, 161. 
Buonaparte, Napoleon, 176, 341. 



Calendar, changes in, during Revolu- 
tion, 337-342. 

Campan, Madame, 62. 

Carlyle, Mr., 144, quoted, on insurrec- 
tion of loth of August, 172-175. 

Carnot, Lazare, intimacy with Robes- 
pierre, 324. 

Carrichon, M., quoted, on execution of 
Madame de Lafayette's family, 390- 
400. 

Cathedral of St. Denis, description of, 
122. 

Charles XIII. of Sweden, 170. 

Ch6nier, Joseph, poet, 295, 297, 300, 
301, 306, 307. 

Choiseul, Due de, 151, 152, 153, 155, 
157, 158. 



444 



INDEX. 



Christian, Prince of Schleswig-Holstein, 
170. 

Clergy of France during Revolution, 
34S-372. 

Clery, valet to Louis XVI., quoted. 
murder of Princesse de Lamballe, 
195-197 ; last hours of Louis XVL, 
203-207. 

Commune, sections forming, 245, 246. 

Conde, Prince de, funeral services or- 
dered by, for Louis XVL, 221. 

Constitutio7t Civile, 348-350, 357. 

Convention, National, reception of 
king's petition, 200 ; orders for 
king's execution, 201 ; meeting after 
execution, 215, 216; recognition of 
Supreme Being, 294 ; confiscation of 
church property, 348-350. 

Coppee, Frangois, quoted, poem 
" Which," 342, 343. 

Corday, Charlotte, birth and personal 
appearance, 24S ; education, 249, 250; 
resolution to destroy Marat, 25 r ; 
departure for Paris, 252 ; letter to 
father, quoted, 253 ; arrival in Paris, 
254 ; address written to Frenchmen, 
quoted, 255, 256; letter to Marat, 
quoted, 256,257; murder of Marat 
and arrest, 262 ; imprisonment in 
Abbaye, 263-268 ; letter to Committee 
of Public Safety, quoted, 264 : letter 
to Barbaroux, quoted, 264-267, 269, 
270 ; removal to Conciergerie, 268 ; 
examination before Tribunal, 268, 
271-273 ; letter to father, quoted, 
271 ; last hours, 273, 274; execution 
and burial, 275. 

Cordeliers, 277. 

D. 

D'Al^gre, escape from Bastille, 77- 
83, 97. 

Danton, Revolutionary leader, depar- 
ture from Paris, 277 ; resignation 
from Committee of Public Safety, 
27S ; arrest, 279 ; imprisonment at 
the Luxembourg, 280; removal to 
Conciergerie, 281 ; trial, 281-286 ; 
execution, 287; life and character, 
2S8, 289 ; alluded to, 173, 17S, 244, 
245, 



Danton, Madame, 288. 
Dauphin. See Louis XVII. 
David, painter, 263, 275, 294, 305. 
Dejean, Dr., quoted, letter concerning 

Latude, 87, 88. 
De la Croix, M., 100, loi. 
Desmoulins, Camille, arrest, 279 ; trial, 

281, 285 ; execution, 287. 
Desorgues, Chevalier, author of hymn 

to Supreme Being, 303, 304, 306. 
Dogs in the Revolution, 343-347. 
Dol, Archbishop of, epitaph to, 354. 
Drouet, J. B., postmaster at Varennes, 

154, 155.158. 
Duperret, friend of Charlotte Corday, 

254, 255, 263. 
Duplay, Eleonore, family of, 328; 

personal appearance and character, 

332- 
Duplay, Maurice, residence, 325-327 ; 
first acquaintance with Robespierre, 
327 ; pecuniary circumstances and 
political views, 328. 



Edgeworth, Abbe, confessor to 

Louis XVL, 203, 205, 208, 213. 
Eglantine, Fabred', quoted, description 

of Marat, 259. 
Elisabeth, Madame, life in the Temple, 

402. 
Erckmann-Chatrian, " Memoires d'un 

Paysan," mentioned in note, 107. 



Fersen, Count Axel de, participation 
inflight to Varennes, 145-149; sub- 
sequent career, 164-171. 

" Figaro," quoted, on last days of Louis 
XVL, 198-222 ; on fate of Louis 
XVII., 408-420; mentioned in notes, 
247, 309- 344' 386. 

Fouquier-Tinville, member of Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal, 240, 241, 251, 
272, 284, 2S5, 328. 

France, condition of, in 1792, 110-115 ; 
journey through, in 17S7, 116-120; 
clergy in, during Revolution, 348- 
372. 



INDEX. 



445 



G. 

" Gentleman's Magazine," quoted^ 
on Count Fersen, 164-171 ; on 
Rabaut, 362-372. 

Germany, Emperor of, reception of 
news of execution of Louis XVI., 
221. 

Goguelat, M,, part in flight to 
Varennes, 151, 152, 157, 15S, 162, 
163. 

Gossec, composer of hymn to Supreme 
Being, 295, 297, 300, 301, 302, 306. 

Grandidier, M., quoted in Klindworth's 
memoirs on attempt to restore Marie 
Antoinette to Austria, 223-231. 

Gregoire, Henri. See Blois. 

Griffith, Thomas Waters, birth and 
early life, 9-17; departure for 
France, iS; residence in Bolbec and 
Havre, ig, 20; removal to Paris, 21 ; 
witness of celebration of taking of 
Bastille, 23, 24 ; public dinner given 
by Santerre, 25; insurrection of loth 
of August, 27-30 ; massacres of 
September, 31-33 ; journey to Havre, 
34-37 ; visit to London, 37, 38 ; 
return to America, 39 ; return to 
Paris and subsequent arrest, 41 ; 
imprisonment at the Madelonettes, 
43-47; at Scotch College, 47-49; 
release, 50 ; efforts to obtain release 
of Thomas Paine, 50; visit to 
London, 53, 54 ; appointment as 
consul to Havre, 54; return to 
France, 55; life in Paris, 58-67; 
journey to Spain, 68 ; final departure 
for America, 69. 

Guillotine, Dr., 204. 

Gustavus III. of Sweden, 165, 168, 
169. 

Gustavus IV. of Sweden, 170. 

Guyonnet, M,, governor of Vincennes, 
92, 93- 

H. 

Halles, the, in 1789, 141, 142. 

Hanson, Rev. Mr., quoted, description 
of Eleazer Williams, 436. 

Hawks, Dr., quoted, opinion of Elea- 
zer Williams, 429, 430. 



H6bert, Revolutionary leader, 215, 246, 
263, 277. 

Herman, judge of Revolutionary Tri- 
bunal, 2S2, 283, 284, 285. 

Hitchman, Francis, quoted, on Revolu- 
tionary Calendar, 335-342. 

Huger, Colonel, share in escape of 
Lafayette, 377, 37S. 

Hugo, Victor, quoted, poem on Louis 
XVII. , 405-407. 



J. 



JoiNViLLE, Prince de, visit to Amer- 
ica, 421-422 ; interview with Eleazer 
Williams, 422-429 ; subsequent con- 
duct to Eleazer Williams, 437. 

Jones, Commodore Paul, 21. 

Josephine de Beauharnais, 409 ; action 
on behalf of Louis XVIL, 417. 

" Journal de la Republique," quoted, on 
execution of Louis XVI., 220. 



K. 



KiLLARENE, Dean of, novel, mentioned 

in note, 365. 
Klindworth, memoirs of, 223. 



Lafayette, Marquis de, birth and 
early life, 373 ; visit to America, 
374 ; public life on return to France, 
374) 375 i imprisonment, 376 ; escape, 
377 ; capture and re-imprisonment, 
378-379; release, 379; second visit 
to America, 3S1-383 ; return to 
France, 384; death and funeral, 
385 ; character, 387. 

Lafayette, family of, 386-389. 

Lamballe, Princesse de, birth, descent, 
and marriage, 184; friendship with 
Marie Antoinette, 185 ; flight to 
England, 186; return to France, 
1 87 ; imprisonment in Temple, 190 ; 
at La Force, 191-194 ; trial, 194; 
murder, 32, 195. 



446 



INDEX. 



Lariviere, account of last moments of 
Marie Antoinette, 241, 242. 

Latimer, Mr. Randolph, quoted., de- 
scription of Eleazer Williams, 436, 

437- 

Latude, Henri de, imprisonments and 
escapes, 72-103. 

Launay, M. de, governor of the Bas- 
tille, 104. 

Lebas, Philippe, friendship with 
Robespierre, 333. 

Lebas, Madame, anecdote of, 333-335. 

Lebrim, family of, friendship for 
Latude, 91, 92. 

Legros, Madame, friendship for Latude, 
99-102. 

Lenfant, Abbe, murder of, 179. 

Lenoir, M., lieutenant of police, 97, 99, 

lOI. 

Lett res de cachet., 95. 

" Littell's Living Age," mentioned in 
notes, 130, 223, 290, 348, 355, 386, 
39°- 

London, reception in, of news of Louis 
XVL's execution, 220. 

" London Quarterly Review," men- 
tioned in note, 235. 

Louis XVL, description of, 131 ; pri- 
vate life in 1789, 134; seeks protec- 
tion of Assembly, 189 ; condemned to 
death by National Assembly, 199 ; 
petition to above, quoted, 199, 200; 
account of imprisonment, 202 ; last 
interview with family, 203; last 
hours, 204-210; execution, 211, 
212 ; burial, 214. 

Louis XVIL, separation from his 
mother, 401, 402 ; subsequent life 
in prison, 403, 404 ; evidence in 
favor of escape from Temple, 409- 
414; political reasons for the sup- 
pression of his escape, 415-419. 

Louis XVIIL, erection of Chapelle 
Expiatoire, 41S. 

Lyons, massacre at, 290. 

M. 

" Macmillan's Magazine," men- 
tioned in note, 390. 

Malesherbes, M. de, prime minister of 
France, 96, 199, 293. | 



Manuel, procureur of the Commune, 

190-193. 
Marat, Revolutionary leader, appointed 
President of Council of the Com- 
mune, 24 5 ; demand for heads of 
aristocrats, 246; political views, 247; 
birth and personal appearance, 257; 
education, 258 ; interest in Revolu- 
tion, 258, 259; residence, 260; love- 
affair with Simone Evrard, 260; 
murder, 261; funeral, 263; honor 
paid to after death, 275, 276; descrip- 
tion of, by D'^figlantine, quoted., 259. 

Marie Antoinette, description of, 132 ; 
friendship for Count Fersen, 165- 
167 ; friendship for Princesse de Lam- 
balle, 185; letter to above, quoted, 
187; conduct at King's death, 217; 
imprisonment in Temple, 233-235 ; 
in Conciergerie, 235-239; trial by 
Revolutionary Tribunal, 239, 240; 
last hours, 241, 242 ; execution, 41, 
42, 243 ; lines on faults by BoufHers, 
quoted, 137. 

Markham, Mrs., historian, mentioned 
in note, 232. 

Marseilles, massacres at, 290. 

Marshal Maille, 172, 173 ; murder of, 
182. 

Maton, lawyer, quoted, on massacre in 
La Force, 179-1S1. 

Mirabeau, Comte de, quoted, on Lafay- 
ette, 385. 

Monroe, Mr., American minister, 52, 55, 
56, 59, 61, 65. 

Moore, Dr. John, letter from, quoted, 
on Marie Antoinette, 189-190. 

Morris, Gouverneur, American minis- 
ter, 21, 22,31, 52, 220 ; letters from, 
to Mx.Giixfa.'Cci., quoted, 45, 46. 

Motte, Madame de la, 124. 

Mouchy, Marechale de, death of, 392, 
393- 

N. 

"National Review," mentioned in 
note, 348. 

Naundorff, M., pretender, 408, 409, 
416, 419, 420. 

Necker, Madame, 98, letter from, relat- 
ing to Latude, quoted, loi, 102. 



INDEX. 



447 



"Nineteenth Century," mentioned in 
note, 355. 

Noailles, Marechale de, execution, 395- 
400. 

Noailles, Vicomtesse de, letter to hus- 
band, quoted, 391, 392; execution, 
395-400. 

Nolte, Vincent, quoted, on Lafayette's 
visit to Washington, 383, 3S4, 3S5. 

Normandie, Due de. See Naundorff. 



o. 

Oberkirch, Madame d', letter from, 

quoted, 1S5, 186. 
Orange, massacre at, 290. 
Orleans, Duchesse d', 197 ; mentioned 

in note, 186. 



P. 

Paine, Thomas Treat, 50, 59, 61. 

Palais Royal in 1789, 139. 

Paris, description of, before Revolution, 
130-143 ; after king's execution, 219, 
220; fetes in, during Revolution, 
291-293. 

Parisians, dress of, in 1789, 140; be- 
havior of, after execution of king, 213, 
214. 

Pentliifevre, Due de, 184, 191, 197. 

Petion, mayor of Paris. 172, 253. 

Phalsbourg, description of town, 107- 
109. 

Philippe, ^^galite, Due d'Orleans, 199, 
218. 

Polignac, Madame de, 184. 

Pompadour, Madame de, 72, 74, 76, yy, 
91. 

Prieur, Abbe, 94. 

Provence, Comte de, description of, 
133; at Trianon, 136; farewell visit 
to king, 146; reception of news of 
king's death, 221; hope of crown, 
409. 

" Putnam's Magazine," quoted, on 
Eleazer Williams, 422-429, 438, 439. 



Q. 

QuiNCY, Mr. Josiah, quoted, on Lafay- 
ette's appearance in Boston, 3S1, 382. 



R. 



Raeaut, Paul, Huguenot pastor, 362, 

Rabaut, Saint-Etienne, Huguenot pas 
tor, early life, 362, 363 ; departure for 
Paris, 364 ; election to States-Gen- 
eral, 365 ; speech against death of 
King, 366; downfall, 368; capture, 
369; execution, 370, 371. 

Recamier, Madame, 62. 

Revolution, French, causes of, 70-72 ; 
episodes of, 324-347; ideas of, 335, 
336 ; men of, 355. 

Revolutionary Calendar, 335-342. 

Robespierre, Revolutionary leader, as a 
poet, 324, 325 ; intimacy with Lazare 
Carnot, 324 ; verses to the Society of 
the Rosati, quoted, 324, 325 ; private 
life with the family Duplay, 325-333 ; 
Fete of the Supreme Being, 305 ; 
political views, 308 ; personal appear- 
ance and character, 309; love of 
power, 310; struggle for supremacy 
in Convention, 310-312; downfall, 
314; arrest, 315; imprisonment and 
liberation, 316; attack upon by Meda, 
318; capture, 319, 320; execution, 
322 ; character, 322, 323 ; allusions to, 
216, 237, 245, 246, 277, 278. 

Rome, reception at, of news of Louis 
XVI. 's execution, 221. 

Romme, chairman of Committee of 
Public Instruction, 337, 33S. 

Rosati, Society of the, 324, 



Saint-I^tienne. See Rabaut, Jean 

Paul. 
Saint-Just, 278, 312, 316, 320. 
Salpetrifere, description of, in 1787, 124, 

125. 
Sanson, executioner, 209, 210, 211, 2S6. 



448 



INDEX. 



Santerre, General, commander of 
National Guard, 203, 206, 207, 212, 

215. 344-347- 
Sardou, quoted^ on Robespierre, 325- 

335- 
Sarrette, musical director, 290, 295, 

296-304, 306, 307. 
Sartine, M. de, letter of Latude to, 

qiicted, 93, 95, 1 01. 
Sauce, M., mayor of Varennes, 156, 

157- 
September massacres, 31-33, 17S-183. 
Sicard, Abbe, quoted, account of 

massacre in La Force, 181. 
Supreme Being, Feast of, institution, 

294 ; preparations for, 294-304 ; 

celebration of, 305-307. 
Swiss Guard, massacre of, 174, 175. 



T. 

Tallien, Madame, 62. 

Temple, the, life of royal family in, 

233-235- 
" Temple Bar," mentioned in note, 184. 
Tourzel, Madame de, 147, 189; letter 

from, quoted, 191, 192; escape from 

La Force, 192, 193. 



Tourzel, Mademoiselle de, 1S9, 190; 

escape from La Force, igi. 
Trianon, description of, 135-138. 



Varennes, flight of royal family to, 

144-163. 
Versailles, description of, in 1787, 125, 

126 ; massacre at, 182, 183. 



w. 

Williams, Eleazer, account of inter- 
view with Prince de J oinville, quoted, 
422-429; early history, 430-433; 
missionary work, 434-436; further 
evidence as to identity, 436-440 ; 
death, 440. 

Williams, Helen Maria, quoted, 336. 



Y. 

Young, Arthur, quoted, on condition 
of France, 336. 



' ^ / 



